GODSKILL from South Germany are active since 2011 and after an EP and a first full-length, they return with the follow-up entitled "The Gatherer Of Fear And Blood" this time via MDD Records. The opener ‘The Eleven Kills The Ten’ starts pretty promising. Melodic but doomy Death Metal with cool blast-beats but grunts as vocals instead of the normally used caws. Fitting very well to their style, which moves somewhere between ILLDISPOSED and melodic Death Metal bands like AMON AMARTH but without the Viking stuff. The song has a pretty good atmosphere with varying vocals, very good guitar and drum work and a memorable melody line. ‘Demon Mother’ continues very melodic but uptempo with again pretty thick guitars but some Viking / Black Metal influences and again with very good guitar and drum-work. The guys manage to write some really groovy but also diabolical Metal tunes and their songwriting is very matured with a bunch of really nordic sounding guitars. ‘Ungodly Is The Flesh’ goes back into the uptempo melodic Death Metal direction with fast drumming and once again a really good lead melody. Enriched by female vocals, this track is a real little treasure and my favourite track on the album. Normally I do not like female vocals anymore but here it works out pretty well. The title track ‘The Gatherer Of Fear And Blood’ is a groove monster but a lot more atmospheric than the other tracks and the grunts get enriched by some whispers and a menacing doomy melody. ‘From The Ashes Of Angels’ is a bit more modern painted but offers again a huge range between Death and Black Metal with really good guitar tunes inspired by both classic Heavy Metal and melodic Death Metal. Same goes for ‘The Shell’ before ‘Preliminary Invocation’ slows down the pace as an instrumental interlude, which is very well effected by the way. ‘Becoming A God’ closes this fine album with all aforementioned trademarks but far more diabolical and very melodic. Fans of ILLDISPOSED, NAGLFAR and AMON AMARTH should check this pretty well-done output out via one of the following sources: www.facebook.com/godskill, www.mdd-records.de