REVIEWED BY – JOHN ERIGO

First off – thanks to Ron Holzner for the hook up on getting to hear this album before it was officially released so I could review it here *********

The band THE SKULL have really hit their stride with their second release THE ENDLESS ROAD TURNS DARK. The band was formed out of what was another great band, TROUBLE. Trouble was a Chicago-based kind of “doom metal” band, before that genre even really existed. They were, to say the least, very heavily inspired by BLACK SABBATH. Slow, churning, HEAVY riffs and a unique voice(ERIC WAGNER) is what set them apart from other bands at the time. Trouble‘s first album came out in 1984, so it went against the grain and for us real headbangers, it was a breath of fresh air. A band NOT giving into the changing times and poofing their hair and wearing tons of make up, TROUBLE kept it stripped down, slowed down and just plain HEAVY!  Well THE SKULL are cut from the same cloth, keeping the doom alive and doing it better than others.

There are 2 members of the current line up of  THE SKULL that were in TROUBLE, that is the already referred to ERIC WAGNER(vocals) and Ron Holzner(bass). The other members of the current band Lothar Keller & Rob Wrong(guitars) and Brian Dixon(drums) are a really solid unit after many line up changes, I hope there aren’t any more changes! THE SKULL have picked up right where TROUBLE left off. This slower and eerie sounding band pulls you in and Eric Wagner’s vocals always had an intoxicating feel to them, you hang on every word.  The riff work from the guitars is so good, so Sabbathy, it really makes the band SO heavy!