Let thee not pass, Abaddon!

"His Slayer and Metallica covers weren't all that bad."

"I like Cronos' solo stuff, the first Mantas album is halfway decent, and it can't be as awful as that second Mantas album.*  I really should complete the trilogy."

"Industrial metal isn't so bad.  I love Mysticum and the first Fear Factory."

Look, justify it however you want, but just be warned--I don't see anyone getting much out of this unless they're really, really into industrial rock/metal (yes, rock).

My encounters with anything even vaguely industrial** usually involve BM bands with hyperactive drum machines, so I feel trying to make meaningful commentary on this album is a waste of time.

*It is.

**I think I may have a tenuous grasp of the concept of industrial music, as I knew someone who worked adjacent to a nightclub, and the muffled sound bleeding through the shared wall was described as being similar to Throbbing Gristle.  In all seriousness, in terms of any significant experiences with industrial music, I believe I heard some oddball Nuclear Blast signee that fit the bill on a compilation once, and occasionally when I pick up a cheapo CD that looks like something metal, it ends up being industrial or darkwave.

Skull Fist - Heavier Than Metal

Just by virtue of the style (NWOBHM-influenced '80s style/retro/New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal/not modern garbage), this automatically meets my personal quality requirements for a recording.  Obviously super-stringent.  Despite my innate positive bias, it's difficult to give this any overall praise beyond "fairly good."  

There's a certain atmosphere of unseriousness (or lack of self-awareness?) here that rubs me a bit the wrong way--the campy title, the purposely amateur genericness of the logo (it's hardly changed over the years aside from added bits to the Ss, perhaps to avoid associations with the naughty SS runic insignia), and the cover art (OK conceptually, but looks like a still from an Adult Swim show--and yes, I'm aware the cover of the first full length is even worse).   Unfortunately it's not purely limited to aesthetics, as the opener and last 2 tracks overuse silly, excessively high vocals that verge on parody.  The other two songs are more tolerable vocally since the extreme highs are limited to falsettos.  Even after getting somewhat used to the vocals, I still think the unnecessary helium only serves to lighten and weaken the music.  Otherwise things are solid if unremarkable musically, although they tend to needlessly overemphasize some choruses with gang backing vocals.  It's not an unpleasant listen and some of the stronger NWOBHM-sounding passages are quite enjoyable, but it often feels like there are somewhat forced attempts to be hooky and catchy-- and frankly, this mini-CD lacks truly killer songwriting.

Two of the members went on to Axxion, whose first EP is stylistically similar but comes off better with a rawer, more natural sound. The later Skull Fist material I have heard seems to tone down the vocals and places more emphasis on guitarwork, although like Cauldron, there's a perverse tendency to dip into very rock-based and commercial sounding melodies.