Skullflower are one of a number of bands that grew out of a jaded punk scene, featuring individuals that wanted to continue to test their audience by producing even more unacceptable levels of sonic oblivion.They formed in 1985 having evolved from a much darker vehicle, the band Total, who in turn had been shaped by members of Pure. For the next eight to ten years, all of these players worked alongside each other to create a catalogue of bruising, psychotropic mindfood. Skullflower took an elongated hiatus in 1996 after the release of the album This Is Skullflower but their continuous discography is proof enough that they never really left us.Strange Keys To Untune God's Firmament is their first brand new studio album in 13 years and it’s certainly not for the faint of heart. Having been described by the label as "not easy listening by anyone's standards", it is of no surprise to find that Skullflower are still experimenting with their extreme assault.With ‘Shivering Aurora’ throwing you straight in at the deep end from the first note, there is immediately a sense of panic, a loss of sensation and ability to breathe. For nine minutes the slowly warping, sucking industrial machine drags you down, but with acceptance comes a heightened sense of perception. The dissonant dirge shifts discreetly, like sand particles that never quite settle. Then, the pattern cuts out to be replaced by the steady mechanical boom of ’Starlit Mire’, which comes up at you from beneath the white noise, feeling almost like a replacement for the heartbeat that you soon realise has gone missing.Not often do I find myself reaching for an album such as this; I find the intensity of the experience all too overwhelming, each track merely an elongated, stagnant wave of oppression, but prior experience has taught me that with discipline comes a certain level of self-detachment not often found in other extreme genres - the mind is suddenly free to wander. I am alone in a bell-tower for ‘Enochian Tapestries’ surveying a sea of people far below; I am being stonewashed to death by vast mechanical hoses during ‘City Of Dis’ and again during ‘Nibelungen’; I am aboard a craft approaching warp speed during the marvelously-titled ‘Gateway To Blasphemous Light’, and yet really, all this time, I have been merely sitting here drinking in what is essentially just a vast ocean of fragmented synth, dirty feedback and white noise.There are moments where lucidity fails me. ‘Basement Of An Impure Universe’ has the most obnoxious tweet and succeeds in pushing me over the edge, whilst ‘Blood Mirror Streams’ threatens to turn my skin inside out such is the scouring intensity of its bass roar. ‘Blackened Angelwings”¦’ and ‘Chaotic Demons”¦’ dare to break out into a disconcertingly bellicose black metal drone, but then we get a track like ‘Skar Konstellation’, uniquely forming a series of ear-rending explosions, teasing me into ramping up the volume just one more notch.SKTUGF is an utter riot in which to immerse yourself, a cacophony of messages all sounding off at once, but, given time, the careful layering does seem keen to reveal much that is hidden within the gritty folds of its skin.

Buy the album on Amazon | [itunes link="http://itunes.apple.com/gb/artist/skullflower/id56686863?uo=4" title="Skullflower" text="iTunes"]Â | Rhythm Online