Modern Ego – The Cult Of The Skull EP

by Mark 'Yeti' Richard · April 13, 2025

Modern Ego is a three piece heavy psychedelic blues rock band from Western Massachusetts. They incorporate seventies proto-metal and atmospheric effects into their sound. The band has been around since 2023 and just recently released their latest EP on March 21st 2025, called The Cult Of The Skull. The eight track release contains four actual songs and four samples that clock in around thirty minutes. The lineup consists of Michael P. Beliveau on guitars and vocals, Mickey Prout on bass, and Tyler McCreary on drums and percussion.

The Cult Of The Skull is formatted like a story of a religious group called “The Potentialism of the Modern Ego”, that started in Buchanan, Michigan. The album starts with “News”, a sample news report explaining the formation of The Cult Of The Skull. Frank Maturo and Joel D. McAuliffe provide the voices of the newscasters in the two minute segment. “The Line” begins the music with a retro sounding song consisting of light psychedelic rock with atmospheric effects and dual singing vocals. The bass and drums carry out the rhythm as the vocals begin. The guitars flourish in and strum along, which blend in nicely. The bluesy guitar leads color in the song as it glides along. The drums pick up the groove and the band sinks in a nice subtle build up until the end. Track three is another sample of an “Infomercial” for joining The Cult Of The Skull. Vasilios Karsaliakos, who produced the album, provides the voice and autoharp on this one and Reed Sutherland lays in some keyboards.

The fourth track and second song on the record is the title track, “Cult Of The Skull”. This song has a heavy dose of doom with a nice warm distortion on the guitars. Beliveau’s vocals channel a proto-metal sound that runs smoothly with the fuzz driven riffing. There’s a heaping assortment of psychedelic sounds that articulate the background of the song as the guitars magnify the rhythms. The drumming of McCreary is fantastic throughout this track as he delivers a solid performance of simple beats integrated with uptempo progressions and fills. “News Updates” is another quick sample that is next and is used as an introduction for the next track.

“Prisoner” begins with insects chittering and birds chirping as the clean guitars emerge. The drums boast a congo-esc beat as the vocals enter with a lush and mellow tone. The splashing cymbals and funky bass lines are stunningly and aesthetically placed in harmony of the tune. The song enhances a bit heavier when the catchy chorus of “Won’t you get away, get away, taking your time! Won’t you get away, get away, all of the time!” kicks in. The light to heavier transitions keeps the listener on the hook. Modern Ego has a head tripping mechanism of injecting psychedelic acid blues with such subtlety and grace. The percolation of barometrical sounds is one of the band’s strengths in their slick ability for crafting great songs.

“Evil Evil” is the final song on The Cult Of The Skull. It’s an exuberant blaze of heavy rocking acclamation. The amps are cranked and the riffs are soaring. The band blends seventies heavy psych with a vivacious mix of blues and thrilling hard rock. The drums are active on this track and shows off some great bombastic fills. The song breaks and bassist Prout locks into a killer groove just before the screeching psychedelic leads sink in. The band are playing full on with this track and they end the song with a fade out.

“For The Community” is the ending sampled segment from another news report. Maturo and McAuliffe once again provide the voicing for the sample. Modern Ego have a great lock on their sound and authenticate the vintage audio that ensues. The actual songs on The Cult Of The Skull have strong merit in heavy psych rock drenched in the blues. It’s a fantastic listen and the band can easily drift from lush and mellow psych sounds to all out acid rocking blues. I can’t wait to hear a full length record from these guys based off the quality of these four excellent songs.