Ultimate musical chaos reigns on Enemy Skulls from Keyodis. Expect a mashup of grindcore, mathcore, and generalized unpredictability in this release with an unabashed Christian and faith focus.
Austin, Texas has a reputation for some rather off-the-wall weirdness and Keyodis brings that to their music. The band is Anthony Kroeker and Morgan Hochstetter, veterans of post hardcore bands Widows & Orphans and Scarlett O’Hara and some of those sensibilities come through in bits and pieces on Enemy Skulls. The album was produced, mixed and mastered by Stone & Silver Studio. According to the Morgan Hochstetter,
“‘Enemy Skulls’ is our next artistic and theological endeavor. Our goal isn’t just to glorify God through everything we do, but to push ourselves artistically in the process. We want people to listen to our music and understand that they, too, are not alone in thinking deeply about who they are in their faith. In a world longing for structure, tradition, and leadership, we believe people need to dive back into the true foundation of our faith: Christ.”.
Make no mistake, this album is a tough listen and will certainly challenge the endurance of most listeners. It is really difficult to describe in such a way that one can get a true picture of the experience. To me, I’m reminded of bands like Training for Utopia, but with less structure and general organization to the songs. Labels like mathcore and noisecore get thrown around and I suppose those fit. The grindcore vocals were a bit of a surprise for me as was “Old Long Past” which is clean singing and basically an acoustic track. The band has said on each of the four videos that there is a longer extended commentary on those songs and that might be of interest. I will say that the production and mixing were well done as without some effort there, this would just be a giant wall of noise and completely uninterpretable.
I do encourage everyone to check this out as you may have never heard anything like it and it may strike a chord. I tried…
Written by John Jackon
Rating: 5/10
Tracklist
- Open Hand, Closed Hand
- Incarnatio – Reformed
- Chasing Nothing / 34 44
- Old Long Past
- The Warrant: The Reboot – Reformed
- Nasty – Reformed
- Nativitas Ecclesia – Reformed
- 5 / 8 – Reformed
- Georgia’s Only Son – Reformed
- Crucifixio – Reformed
- Zeon – Reformed
- Cultz Candy – Reformed
- With All Its Teeth – Reformed
- Quiet Time
Band Members
Morgan Hochstetler – Written, vocals, drums, synth
Anthony Kroeker – Guitar, bass
Release Date: 14 August 2026
Record Label: The Charon Collective
Links
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Keyodis
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisiskeyodis/
Bandcamp: https://keyodistcc.bandcamp.com/album/enemy-skulls
Video for “Old Long Past”:
Video for: “Chasing Nothing 34 44”:
Video for “Open Hand, Closed Hand”:
Video for “Incarnatio”: