When describing the "Last Shot at Heaven" cover art on the Skullflower Bandcamp page, Matthew Bower highlights the ambiguity of the striking photograph of a civilian casualty during the Yugoslavian schism. "Is it ecstatic[?]" he asks of the woman's expression. This, too, is a question one could reasonably ask of any Skullflower album.

Bower and his many cohorts' body of work is full of lengthy compositions that evoke all manner of emotions. Statement records like "IIIrd Gatekeeper", released a year before this one, were as terrifying as they were beautiful in their ferocious majesty. But "Last Shot at Heaven" is something different altogether; desperate, anguished and rapturous, it is among rock music's closest approximations to the final burst of dopamine before the bullet exits your skull.

"Psychedelic" doesn't begin to cover it. "Ecstatic" suits this much better.

TRACK LIST:

1. CALIGULA
2. GET THR HORN
3. DUFUS
4. BAD ALCHEMY
5. ELF PIERCER
6. ROTTEN SUN II
7. MYSTIC EYE
8. BLOWN DUKES