Skelator's 2019 Cyber Metal opus found the Seattle metallers pushing their musical and lyrical elements to the outer limits. The eight-song outing was Skelator at their unapologetic best, featuring marauding NWOBHM-inspired guitar lines and a detailed concept from the mind of vocalist Jason Conde-Houston that was a clinic on sci-fi and 1980s movie worship. Their first album on Gates of Hell Records left an immediate impression on denizens across the metal globe who wondered where the band would head next. The answer is the Blood Empire EP, a four-song platter that marries Skelator's penchant for both epic and punctuating speed metal numbers. The album's dense and layered approach would almost belie Skelator's recording tactics, but layer by layer, part by part, Blood Empire came together as a fully-realized work that captures the complexity and depth of Skelator's music. Blood Empire features two bonafide epic cuts in Good Day to Die and The First Empire and two thrashers, Deeds of Honor and Bloodwine. The song sequence gives the EP a cinematic-like quality that serves as a journey into Conde-Houston's story about Star Trek Klingon lore. It is the beginning of The Kahless Trilogy that will chronicle the many deeds that Kahless did to make his empire come true and ties into the Max Nazaryan-created cover art that shows Kahless having his final batter with his brother, Morath, on the peak of a volcano. With their magnum opus Cyber Metal and now Blood Empire ready to greet the metal masses, Skelator will continue to stride boldly into the future.
