3 out of 5

Label: Skin Graft Records

Produced by: Colin Marston

There’s a lot of history behind Skryptor’s crew, but the media copy on the bandcamp seems like it’s reaching for some justifications as to why you should listen. I’m reading that with bias, of course, as I struggle for a hook into this review, but my eyes glossed over a few times trying to find what the copy was trying to say, exactly; like what’s the line that’s actually going to get me to pay attention, as opposed to simply circling around namedrops like Dazzling Killmen and Craw?

Sneaked in there is this: “A 2015 Craw box set, spearheaded by [Skryptor drummer, Hank] Shteamer … led to two reunion gigs, which in turn became the direct impetus for Skryptor.” Thus: a fan of one band hooked up with that band, and a pre-existing friendship between Crawster David McClelland and DK guitarist Tim Garrigan turned into this group. It’s a wayward “supergroup,” but its starting point is in fandom – note that McClelland and Garrigan hadn’t necessarily started a new group on their own.

I’m making this narrative completely up to inform my opinion (that’s how facts work, baby), and – unsurprisingly – it syncs pretty well: Luminous Volumes has a jam session vibe, with occasional callbacks to each member’s discographies, but washed over with adulthood – yeah, I used to rock hardcore records in the past, but nowadays I’m good with some Sabbath. Shteamer’s band Stats is a similar stew of post-hardcore with some guitar wizardry solos overlaid; on Luminous Volumes, that’s balanced out with Craw’s forward momentum and Garrigan’s later experiments with You Fantastic!, which winds back around to something that kind of sounds like one of Nick Sakes many bands, sans singing.

This is not a bad deal by any means, it just hasn’t cooked long enough to really emerge with a distinct flavor. (That’s how cooking works, baby!) If you’re new to instrumental rock, or err towards stuff in that vein that is more rock – as opposed to Skin Graft’s no-wave, or the metal leanings of some of Garrigan’s / McClelland’s / Shteamer’s past acts – Skryptor is a good time. Colin Marston’s steady production hand leans into the Sabbath vibe to cast a kind of pleasingly fuzzy net over things, and we get a couple interstitial breaks where Garrigan can add quirk that often doesn’t appear on more mainline instrumental rock stuff. But assuming you’ve traveled down some of these roads before, there are a lot of bands mining similar stuff, and often with more of a defined output. I imagine Skryptor could get there, but they likely need another album to get past the “is this just a side project?” vibes of their origin story and produce something more radical.