SKULL181

Posted on June 30, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

ANTHARES, No Limite Da Força (1987, Devil Discos)

The skull:
An impressively mean looking, fanged skull with… tailpipes? Or something? He’s lording his magesterial size over a bunch of lowly skeletons, whose completeness, ironically, makes them the lesser bony creatures. Lightning sparks off the tips of a stony logo, but the big skull is unfazed. He knows he’s non-conductive.

The music:
Brazilian speed metal trying very hard to sound German. With the usual mid 80s Brazilian caveats that this is underproduced, a bit sloppy, and totally derivative, it’s not too bad, if Living Death and Exumer are your thing. Unlike a lot of bands from this time and place, Anthares don’t take themselves too seriously, and there’s a sense of humor evident here, even if I can’t understand a word of the Portugese lyrics. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the band is still around (after a ten year break starting in the mid 90s) and still gigging, although they haven’t released anything in close to a decade. By singing in their native language, they’ll probably never catch on outside of Brazil, but eager students of mid 80s thrash could do worse than to save Anthares in their back pocket for an occasion to look really knowledgeable to their impressionable peers.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL180

Posted on June 29, 2013 by Friar Wagner

DIMMU BORGIR, Gateways (2010, Nuclear Blast)

The skull:
One thing’s for sure: this skull cover matches the music inside…highly-adorned and faked-up with lots of technology. This skull has a couple extra sets of eye sockets above its main ones, and although a lone skull is completely useless as a warrior, it is nonetheless dressed for war here. With a horny (hehe) headpiece, little shield-like things hanging around, and various weird shit scattered around it, it’s probably more ornamental than something actually utile.

The music:
The only Dimmu Borgir song I ever liked was 1997’s “Mourning Palace,” and even that song’s effect wore off after about 5 or 6 listens. Fast forward to 2010 and Dimmu Borgir sounds really, really unappealing. This single, “Gateways,” is more Rammstein than Norwegian black metal in its cold militaristic cadence, and the plastic-y production is terrible: feather-light guitar sound, repetitive triggered double bass, sampled choir vocals, cheesy synth sounds that are WAY too high in the mix. If Leaves’ Eyes covered newer Immortal songs and Abbath sang guest vocals, it might sound like this, but really, “Gateways” is even worse than that description sounds. I’m not, however, gonna be a retard and say “Dimmu Borgir have lost it!”…because they never had it.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL179

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

PYLON, Days of Sorrow (2006, Quam Libet)

The skull:
I’m assuming that the hapless designer who put this cover together thought that just converting everything to grayscale would make it look like this randomly pasted skull would appear to be an integral piece of the rococo architectural detail that serves as the background, but nope, it didn’t work out like he’d planned. To boot, the skull is considerably smaller than it could/should have been. A shoddy effort all around.

The music:
Yet another brainless, talentless Sabbath knockoff, fronted by a completely worthless singer. Musically, I like that they sometimes follow their idols down the softer, psychedelic paths that most fuzzed-out Sabs imitators forgo, but man, it’s really hard to endure this shit when the vocals come in (although the heavy German accent is at least a little funny). Days of Sorrow is just three songs on a split with some other no doubt awful band called Painwork, but until they come up with a Big Dumb Skull of their own, I’m not going near them.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL178

Posted on June 27, 2013 by Friar Wagner

TAAKE, Nekro (2007, Dark Essence)

The skull:
Stark and haunting, skully and spooky, moonlit and creepy, this is a very effective skull cover which would have been PERFECT without that stupid “True Norwegian Blah Blah” banner in the bottom right corner.

The music:
There might not be a more prototypical Norwegian black metal band than Taake. They’ve been doing it since 1995 and continue to this day, no major changes and no turning away from what they originally set out to do. This EP came out in 2007, and its main song, the 11+ minutes of “Hennes Kalde Skamlepper,” is as good an example of Taake’s sound as any. Cold, buzzy, reverb-drenched riffs, fast-and-faster rhythms, and your usual Quorthon-derived vocals on top (ie. the guy sounds like Nocturno Culto in Darkthrone’s early/mid ’90s era, but sharper and even more scathing). There’s a bit of ambient guitar landscaping in the middle of this lengthy song, and after it kicks in again there are some odd Skoll-like bass lines happening (think Ved Buens Ende). Shorter track “Voldtekt” opens up the EP; it’s a frosty, blazing sort of thing, akin to something off Darkthrone’s similarly single-minded Transilvanian Hunger. Taake also covers Von’s “Lamb” here, and it works well enough to draw the line of influence from Von’s primitive weirdness to the basics of “True Norwegian Black Metal.” Which, by the way, Taake boasts about playing on the cover of Nekro, in case there was any question about it. This little banner also adds “Piss Off & Fuck Off,” which I will do right now. It’s cool that they don’t ask us to die after fucking off, which is usually how it goes, you know?
— Friar Wagner

SKULL177

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

LOS PIRATES, Heavy Piracy (2009, self-released)

The skull:
A pretty standard-issue skull and crossbones, and certainly very on-the-nose for a pirate metal band. The rope is a weird, pointless, and ugly addition, so at least there’s that. Would it have been so hard to at least try to make it look like the image existed on the faux-parchment beneath it? Otherwise, why even have a backdrop like that? But, half-measures are the mark of a good BDS, I suppose. Or if not a good one, at least a typical one.

The music:
Assuming the worst, as is my general police regarding pirate metal, I was pleasantly surprised by Los Pirates. I’m reminded of mid 90s Rage: highly melodic but not cloying power metal, with shockingly great vocals. Really, Andy Brevi is better than 99.99% of all power metal vocalists out there now, and not only does he have a pleasing voice, his melodies are strong and catchy. Some of the songs, for sure, lay on the yo-ho-ho a little thick, but it’s a little strange to hear a pirate metal band taking their music and work seriously, which leads me to wonder why on earth they chose to shackle themselves to such a ridiculous concept? Why would anyone willingly invite comparisons to the execrable Alestorm? A new name and a new theme would benefit Los Pirates immensely, but in the meantime, I will be buying this forthwith (or at least trying.)
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL176

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Friar Wagner

THE BATALLION, Head Up High (2010, Dark Essence)

The skull:
The Batallion might win a few battles now and then, but they sure won’t win any spelling bees. But let’s look at that skull: it’s apparently being held up high, so we’ll take them at their word. There’s nothing very distinctive about it, except for those awesome teeth, which are bullets. “You goth fags can go fuck yourself with your prosthetic fangs,” says this skull, “’cause my dentist does BULLETS!”

The music:
The most notable thing about The Batallion is that their bassist played on the second and third Borknagar albums, albums which this Friar holds in high regard. Other members have played in Taake and Old Funeral, so you wonder why they’re devolving so significantly with this band? Head Up High might be professionally executed, and it doesn’t exactly fit into the ballcap-and-white-high-tops retrothrash scene, but it’s basically fourth generation thrash that you’ve heard a million times before. It’s like their favorite Sodom era is the punkier one (Masquerade in Blood, Get What You Deserve) and like they think thrash ‘n’ roll is something to exalt. Ah shit, they’re probably just out for a good time and looking for an excuse to get drunk. Go for it guys. (Speaking of “guys,” their first album is notable for having some interesting homoerotic references: it’s called Stronghold of Men and contains songs such as “The Spirit of Masculinity” and “Man to Man.” Hey, to each his own.)
— Friar Wagner

SKULL175

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

BIGRIG, 10-4 Good Buddy (2009, demo)

The skull:
This one pretty much speaks for itself, no? What could I possibly add that would make this funnier? Nothing!

The music:
BigRig is a side project from Admiral Nobeard and Commodore RedRum of the second best pirate metal band of all time, Swashbuckle. As you might expect, BigRig play trucker metal, even if no one else does. The sound is basically goofy deathrock, like midperiod Entombed but better and funny on purpose. They’re a joke band, yeah, but BigRig (like Swashbuckle) are damned good at what they do, and they play this ridiculous shit like they mean it. The unexpected melody in “The Long Haul” almost approaches earnestness, even. I’m sure these guys know it’s a galactic waste of time to put any effort into a throw-away novelty band like BigRig, but they just can’t help doing it right. You have to respect that.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL174

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Friar Wagner

VEX, Thanatopsis (2010, Horror Pain Gore Death Productions)

The skull:
A cute little guy here with humongous eye sockets. Toothless, the skull has a look of surprise or desperation, or possibly both. Looks sort of like a child’s skull. Whatever the age, somebody forgot to bury the body properly. I’m assuming the tombstone-like stone behind it marks a gravesite, and the field it’s in hasn’t been mowed in quite some time. If I was hiking in this field I wouldn’t be able to resist picking up this skull and putting it into my backpack. After flicking the maggots off. Cool cover, one that looks like it could either be a mildly manipulated photograph or a really good bit of painted realism.

The music:
Considering the label this is on, I didn’t expect the music to be of such a refined, majestic sort. It’s from Texas but sounds like early/mid ’90s Swedish melodic death metal. I imagine they’re disciples of Eucharist and early Tiamat. Their guitars weave melodic themes and riffs that recall Dissection, Unanimated, Sacramentum, early Dark Tranquillity and early At the Gates, with vocals in a similar vein (seething, near-black metal rasps). They keep things raw on the production side, guitars are thin and hypnotic sounding, and the song arrangements are relatively complex, so they truly sound authentically olden — nowhere near as edgeless as most modern melodic death metal bands. Thanatopsis is very good for what Vex is trying to achieve. Some moments hint at a will for experimentation, so I’m curious to hear the follow up, Memorious. What do you know, a cool cover and some good music to go along with it!? Skulls be praised!
— Friar Wagner

SKULL173

Posted on June 22, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

RITUAL SPIRIT, Ritual Spirit (2001, Shark)

The skull:
Lazy, ugly, and brown even by the depraved standards of Big Dumb Skulls, this is one of the saddest covers I’ve ever seen. What band could care so little about their art, what label be so unconcerned with success, to have settled on this image? It’s like a suicide note, this cover, anhedonia expressed through Photoshop. “We feel nothing. The world is without meaning. No one knows anyone, and we all die alone. Signed, Ritual Spirit.”

The music:
Unbelievably, indeed depressingly, I was not able to find even a single song by this band online. Shark Records released a lot of crap to be sure, but they were a big enough label that you’d think someone would have bought, liked, and memorialized it to YouTube, especially since the band was founded by some ex-member of Tyran Pace (known best as Ralf Scheeper’s first band). Almost every big dumb skull has left some musical mark on the internet, down to the most obscure and ephemeral artifacts of three decades past. Ritual Spirit, though, exists only as a collective dream, a half-remembered hallucination of middling power metal. Oblivion awaits us all, and one day the last person to have heard even Metallica will pass from this earth.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL172

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Friar Wagner

RAM, Forced Entry (2005, Black Path Metal)

The skull:
Another band that likes the concept of fusing animal horns onto a human skull, and it’s
usually ram horns that are favored (second favorite: bison horns), so this band is well-
named. The black and red makes an effective impact, complete with glowing red lights
emanating from the eye sockets. Pretty much looks how it sounds.

The music:
Swedish vocalists usually don’t come with much of an accent, not the way Italian or Greek
vocalists do, but this guy has a strange delivery, partly due to a weird accent that twists
every word into near-nonsense. He also ocassionally sounds influenced by the mid-range tones of Agent Steel’s John Cyriis and Sanctuary-era Warrel Dane (“Machine Invaders”), so the dude is clearly on the oddball side. His voice gives Ram a unique edge, for better or worse. The rest of Ram play pretty cool traditional metal that finely walks the line between elder worship and the hungry spontaneity only rookies possess. You get songs with multiple parts, tempos and sections, and a whole lot of energy; stuff like “Machine Invaders,” “Infuriator,” and “Venom in My Veins” captures the interest well enough. Their lead guitar work is suitably blistering, some great tones and melodic choices that help the Ram cause quite a bit. There’s no one obvious root sound that is Ram’s favorite…I hear flavors of Japanese, Danish, German, British, Italian and U.S. heavy metal here, all on the raw, dark and heavy-handed side. A few moments get stuck in a plod, like the band isn’t quite sure where to go (the title track), but for the most part it’s a fun if totally easy listen. This definitely could have been released in 1985.
— Friar Wagner