Bones - Bones (2011)

My first experience with Bones, the new band from Jon Necromancer, Joe Apocalyptic Warlord and Carcass Chris (all former Usurper members) was a few months ago while watching them tear the hell out of Reggie's Rock Club during their opening slot at an Autopsy gig. I was impressed enough to pick up the album immediately after they left the stage.

Much like the recent output from Scythe, Bones brings some totally old school metal to the table, though not exactly the same style. Bones is a fair mix of death and thrash metal with some strong crust punk influences, which basically results in heavy energetic songs, head banging galore, fist pumping and just total metal devastation from start to finish.

Carcass Chris' unleashes riffs that sound reminiscent of thrash metal and punk, sounding brutal and pummeling, but very fluid in their delivery, which means a mosh pit is imminent as well as plenty of fun to be had. Only one guitar is used on the record and while the bands sound could benefit from a rhythm guitar it still at least adds something of a vintage vibe to the material and I like the way the solos are channeled into just one speaker too. Jon Necromancer handles the bass and vocals and while I don't hear his bass doing anything overly special I do like the fuzzed up distorted feel it has, very old school, while his vocals are mostly delivered in a shouted/semi-growled manner, though his cohorts do join in as well. Joe Apocalyptic Warlord's drumming is also fantastic, sometimes totally furious, but generally just going for the d-beat style of playing.

The songs are all fairly straightforward, I mean were not talking anything super complex or technical, this is just old school music played in this modern age, man! What can I say though, I love the breakneck energy these tracks hold, especially on songs like, 'March of the Dead,' 'Apocalyptic Warlord' and the rather Motorhead-ish sounding, 'Lonely Death.' '666' is also quite catchy and one of the bigger highlights on this beast.

'Bones' as a whole is damn enjoyable and nine songs long and thirty five minutes in length it feels like the perfect amount of time to spend with a band like this. It will definitely be interesting to see where they go from here, because after hearing both this and Scythe debut one thing is clear to me; Ex-Usurper members do not fuck around! Great record.