A one-sided, three-song flexi disc shouldn’t match up with a box cutter. Local fivepiece gathered by Ziolkowski bros David and Victor – and counting Residual Kid drummer Ben Redman among the guilty – Skeleton lashes out harder than a flash mob. Produced by OS scholar Orville Neeley, I Hate I Skate grinds a metallic density that drops into hardcore tempos as exhorted by a deep, croaking, prison nihilism (“Locked Up”). The death vox gallop of “Change Me” clears momentarily for an unencumbered backbeat, but “Torture” caps the trio of tunes with a lo-fi Scandinavian evisceration as black as metal.

***.5

This article appears in September 16 • 2016.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.