“Keeping The Cauldron Warm” is the seventh album by the Swedish Metal band SKELETAL SPECTRE and is released by Great Dane Records. The album starts with a riff that would make you think you will be listening to a Death’n’Roll or Groove Metal band, but then it picks up the pace with a steady galloping beat and harsh croaky vocals that are more Black Metal than Death Metal or somewhere in between. These are two elements that you will hear throughout the album that to me seem the main foundation on which everything else is built: the harsh vocals and a driving Metal drum beat with a simple chuggy tremolo or power chord riff similar to CELTIC FROST, but a bit more modern. The Death’n’Roll sounding riffs also make a comeback now and then, but you can also hear some that might make you think of melodic Death Metal in a general way, not a specific band, like Gothic tinged slow melodic lines. I think all these elements could make the band fit in a category similar to first wave Black Metal, sounding evil, but not having an established sound. The modern mix (in a ’90s Scott Burns Floridian way, not 2026 modern) makes it a bit anachronistic and lacking the impact of a truly first wave band. It doesn’t sound obscure and evil, but it does sound like outsider Metal music which gives it a plus in being some sort of first wave Black Metal kind of band. I’m not really sure if the music would give the same vibes with a different take on the vocals and I wouldn’t find it as interesting if the vocal approach didn’t add the context to the simplicity of everything else presented here. If you are partial to bands that don’t sound like their counterparts in their specific scene like ROOT, ROTTING CHRIST, DECEASED, GOATLORD or IMPERATOR, I think you might find SKELETAL SPECTRE’s newest output interesting. www.facebook.com/skeletalspectre, www.facebook.com/greatdanerecords