5 out of 5

Label: Dirter Productions

Produced by: Skullflower, Ian MacKay (recorded by)

Massive. The Skullflower journey from somewhat industrial rock to noise is a consistently fascinating one, peppered by signaling of extremes and symbolism and spirituality, while the music has arguably maintained a throughline of mesmeric brutalism. While I’d go back and forth to say what version of SF I “prefer,” since I find the whole experiment very fascinating and satisfying, early 90s versions of the group are probably the most accessible, while also acting as a doorway to how they’d (and Matthew Bower) would develop. IIIrd Gatekeeper is an absolutely fantastic capture of that period, with the reissue’s added tracks expanding an already impressive set in a way that I think helps to eclipse some of the more wandering / underwhelming moments – enough so that I’d say it bests the original, and I wanted to represent that in the rating.

The template here is reverbed vocals; booming drums; and ever-present, terse and overwhelming reams of guitar, entwined with an earthy bass. Ian MacKay’s recording of this holds up (this isn’t listed as a remaster, but damn, you’d believe it as being recorded in 2024, excepting some minor clipping / distortion at points, which always kinda works with SF’s sound anyway), and it’s clear why he’d been a preference for some noise rock artists, as you get full atmosphere in a way that doesn’t desaturate or diminish the individual elements. Tracks bounce back and forth between bass-led grooves, shimmery and razored guitar-led drone rock, and some noisy and gorgeous epic-type tracks that have enhancements that sound like synths or treated strings or somesuch, with the bonus inclusion of the entire B-side of tracks expertly slotted in to work with some resequencing that prioritizes noise, leads into grooves, and ends with the epics.

The “underwhelming” bits to which I refer is when the compositions get ahead of themselves a bit, songs setting up riffs that just aren’t going to pay off in any kind of ultimate conclusion, since the Skullflower way is to start as you mean to go on: pummeling from the first note. This only happens a couple of times (Black Rabbit, Godzilla), and fades the more you listen to, and get the cadence of, the album, which is also where the extra tracks assist, extending the general greatness.

A deserving reissue and expansion, reminding of an excellent jumping-on point for the SF curious.