Skurk
Final Gift

Skurk means villain if you translate it from Swedish, might mean something different in Icelandic but it is more fun to think of it as villain. A band from Akureyi in the north of Iceland, an interesting city that happens to be the largest in the north of the small country, I was there once but never met any hardrockers – though I was there only one day which might explain that thing. They are to release an album this year but the promo agency thought it would be good to introduce the band with their only release to date. That release is an EP that is called Final Gift.

Thrash metal is their game, a little raw and edgy and quite far from the polished stuff we usually get. They may not be reinventing the wheel or anything but they stiff feel a little bit exotic and interesting – kind of arctic and cold. They sound like how one imagines that thrash metal should sound like. It would seem that we get too little Icelandic music as this is clearly interesting and they are promising orchestral stuff and things like that on their album – that could be really interesting. But until then. This EP has six tracks and plays for 32 minutes; it has a relatively good variation over these tracks.

I think these guys have a great thing going with this EP and I can hardly wait for the album. I do however, not think that this album deserves any of the highest ratings – not because it is poor or anything, it doesn’t offer enough to be really excited about in terms of originality. They do feel exotic and interesting though and fans of classic, old-school thrash metal will probably find this EP very good. I like it and recommend you to look much closer at it if you fit the description of a thrash metal fan. I am however more interested in the upcoming album, hopefully that will end up in my mailbox soon.

I think the ending track is the highlight of the EP, but all the songs are quite good. The EP itself is quite strong, an exotic and back-to-basics thrash metal album – a fairly enjoyable thing to listen to and I like it. It can be well worth looking at what Skurk has to offer.

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