Monthly Archives: July 2013

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MERCY, King Doom  (1989, Euro)

The skull:
An observant reviewer on the Metal Archives site astutely notes that it’s hard to tell how big this skull is, because there’s nothing in the photo to use as scale. I’m gonna go with “planet-sized,” because I’d love to think that King Doom is the ruler of a planet shaped like a skull and made out of glass. This cover totally rules, and I’m not being funny or ironic. Its simplicity, and the pink, yellow and clear/glass colors have a kind of hypnotic, almost psychedelic effect on this friar. I am entranced. Almost obsessed.

The music:
The label that released this is Euro. What the hell is that? Research tells me the Euro label only released this album and one by long-forgotten Swedish band Captor in 1993. What a totally not-impressive discography! Anyway, Mercy are most famous for being the testing ground for one Messiah Marcolin, who went on to front Candlemass. By the time Mercy’s third album, King Doom, was released, Messiah was already nearing the end of his first campaign with Candlemass. So what does this album offer? A hollow production is the first aspect of note: opener “Death’s Company” features a decent plodding riff to open the ceremonies, and the guitar sound is a flat wash of treble, the bass is more or less implied rather than having any real presence, and the drums are thin with over-sizzly cymbals. The vocals — now we’re talking. This guy (Rick Wine) is crazy. He’s an off-the-chain yelper in the high register vein of Scott Jeffreys (Confessor) and John Stewart (Slauter Xstroyes). I like his delivery, there’s a lot of character in his wail, and a lot of control too. However, he doesn’t have much to work with, as the music is mostly faceless doom that rarely rises above the average. It’s one of those albums with a handful of enticing individual parts and riffs, but it’s not assembled very well and none of these songs are particularly memorable. A couple shorter instrumentals add some depth, and there are moments that nearly achieve greatness (album closer “Darkness,” for instance). Overall, though, it’s forgettable. No surprise, as Mercy was always second or even third-tier doom. I’ll continue to hold onto 1985’s Witchburner as the only Mercy album in my collection, and that due to it being an interesting historic relic. But man, this vocalist, hell yeah, I’m a fan.
–Friar Wagner

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SATHANAS, Ripping Evil  (1988, demo)

The skull:
Yes! This is what we’re talking about! There is nothing left out here, nothing spared. Front and center is a skull whose forehead is branded with an upside down star. He looks fried and possessed by lunacy. That’s a fantastic start. He’s got horns that look like carrots. There are two cloaked figures flanking him (the Sunn dudes?), each holding a large inverted cross, the crosses chained together in satanic matrimony, crossed in an X behind the skull. They seem to be taking this job very seriously. Fire burns above the entire unholy scene. Ripping evil? Ripping evil what? Ripping evil a new asshole, I say! That makes no sense, of course, and neither does this tape cover. But it rules beyond all holy hell.

The music:
The fact that Pennsylvania’s Sathanas have been active since 1988 is something to respect. This is their very first demo, and it’s clearly influenced by Possessed, Mantas,
Hellhammer, Celtic Frost and possibly even Morbid Angel’s early material. They don’t
have the songwriting and/or playing skills and/or charm of those bands, so appeal is limited, but it’s still a document of the ’80s death metal movement, even if it is of minor importance. Ultimately each of these four songs is mediocre, but the crudeness and conviction with which it’s delivered is notable, and that it was released in the ’80s makes it a bit of a cool relic. Nothing more or less.
— Friar Wagner

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RUDE FOREFATHERS, Corner of the Pain  (2004, demo)

The skull:
The eyes..the swirl of smoke…the nipple ring that glows for no apparent reason…the muddy red. This whole thing is an eyesore. Why not hammer that final nail into the coffin with the Parental Advistory warning? Surely many Italian parents must be forewarned that these Forefathers are not only Rude, but potentially Vile, Obscene, and maybe even a little bit Naughty. A silly cover that looks thrown together last minute. Where have we heard that before?

The music:
Although they now sound like post-Power Metal Pantera meets Children of Bodom, which means it’s very well-played but difficult to enjoy for this friar, this earlier Rude Forefathers material is much less accomplished. The riffs are plodding and ham-fisted, the vocals like pre-Focus Cynic (not a great thing actually)…and I’m not really sure what to call this kind of metal. It’s like some ’80s-era Brazilian death/thrash band, in terms of wacky production and shoddy performances, with a bit of a hardcore slant, and some doom elements thrown in. Ultimately, the’yre a traditional metal band influenced by the heavier varieties like death and thrash, without any real direction or interesting ideas. But I don’t hate this. It has a charm, and even some good moments: the intro riff and brief wah-wah craziness in “Firm Blood”; a crazed guitar line that reminds of John Weston-era Dawnbringer. But that’s as good as it gets. “Slave” is like Schizophrenia-era Sepultura playing a NWOBHM cover song. And “Depression”…well, it’s a horrible, horrible thing, starting ballad-like, moving into doomier territory and maxing out with a faster section. When it gets fast, they try tackling tricky technicality far beyond their abilities. The playing is junky, the vocals a punky embarrasment…the entire song sucks. Clearly a rip-off of Metallica’s trio of Side 1, Song 4 ballads circa 1984, 1986 and 1988. Rude Forefathers have improved remarkably since this well-intentioned demo, they’re much better players and songwriters now, but whether it’s this inept era of the band or the more professional current stuff, I have better things to do, I don’t have time for any of it.
— Friar Wagner

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REIGN, Embrace (1994, Mausoleum)

The skull:
I don’t know who Marco Stohler is, but he sure is good at copying H.R. Giger. The vertebrae, the slimy sheen, the biomechanical nonsense — Stohler has it all down pat, and he’s put that prodigious talent for emulation to excellent work crafting this big dumb skull. It’s hard to call this a bad cover, because it’s a pretty fine painting, but it rates about a 1 on the originality scale.

The music:
And that’s a fair summary of the music, too. Embrace is a British thrash album from 1994, and if that doesn’t make you leery, I don’t know what will. Reign were to late 80s Sepultura what Xentrix were to mid 80s Metallica, although I’ll say I like Xentrix a good deal more than I like Reign. Embrace has a satisfying crunch to the guitars, but the pacing tends to plod (a very common problem with UK thrash), and the singer is completely charmless in the way a lot of last-gasp thrash vocalists were, trying too hard to bridge the gap between their beloved Hetfieldian yarl and the ever more popular death metal growl. This is one of the rare BDS albums that I actually own: the first two Reign albums were staples of discount bins everywhere in the mid 90s, and the cover alone was worth $2 to me. I haven’t listened to this in close to 20 years, probably, and while I remembered it being decidedly mediocre, I guess I’ve mellowed in my old age because this is definitely more enjoyable than my memory allowed. The clunky lurch that is the band’s default tempo gets old quick, but there are more fast parts than I recalled and in general this sounds more or less like the kind of thrash I like, but it never quite gets over the hump. As I’ve said many times, though, this totally forgettable slab of old school thrash is generally much better than all but the best of today’s rethrashers. I will grant that I’ve clearly entered the “get off my lawn” phase of thrash fandom, but that doesn’t make the observation any less true.
— Friar Johnsen

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STATIC-X, Cannibal  (2006, Reprise)

The skull:
No crossbones for this skull — he just takes those bones and eats them. Like a cannibal! All that cutlery wreathed around his noggin are the tools of the trade he uses to get leg bone into mouth. Whatever works! Those choppers are in top-notch shape, too…they oughta be if they’re gonna be munchin’ bone. Kick ass cover (if you’re 14 years old), although it’s uglied up by that utterly stupid Parental Advisory warning.

The music:
Whether it’s super obscure Italian no-hopes or major label L.A. bands, very often a skull
album cover means “We love Pantera and Roots-era Sepultura.” Goes for Static-X too,
although there’s an added faux-industrial edge due to the use of electronics, samples,
and synth-generated beats. Whatever, it really sucks. I sat through this whole album hoping something interesting would happen. Nearly eight minutes into the album, a weird moment in “Behemoth” dips into the Buckethead-meets-Vai school of guitar work, but it’s brief, and these kinds of moments are rare throughout Cannibal. Any highlights seem to come in the area of the lead guitar work, as another of these rare bright moments comes in “Electric Pulse.” It’s very good actually, but, you know, “any port in a storm,” right? Quite often, Cannibal sounds like a melodic, nuanced Slipknot…a Slipknot-lite, maybe. I’m no metal purist that takes issue with any semi-metal band on a major label (see my Deftones review two skulls prior to this), but this is just dumb jockstrap metal. How does a band so vapid get so huge?
— Friar Wagner

 

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SODOM, ‘Til Death Do Us Unite  (1997, Sony GmbH)

The skull:
The ridiculousness of this cover edges into the sublime. Assuming the (corny, unclever) title came first, it’s hard to imagine art that could do more to turn it into an almost meaningful phrase, elevate it beyond a half-hearted pun, than this cover does. Yes, it’s fairly absurd, but it must be admitted that part of the reaction to this image is bound up in a societal discomfort with a presentation of nudity that is neither lascivious nor humorous in intent. Something similar can be said about obesity, for while this photograph is not entirely unjudgmental in its view of the man on the left, contrast the sobriety of this picture with the cover of the album two back in the Sodom discography, Get What You Deserve. The symmetry between the two subjects here implicitly dignifies (to some extent) the man, presenting him at the very least without scorn. Forgive this friar for waxing pretentious, though. This is a funny site about skulls (and look at that happy fella, sandwiched between those two big bellies). I know, though, that this cover has come in for a lot of derision over the years, but I do find it incredibly striking and poetic in a way almost completely unknown to heavy metal art. Of course I recognize the silliness at work here, but this is not a joke without value or meaning, and I think to this day that it was a bold and brave decision on the band’s part to use this cover.

The music:
Perhaps the biggest surprise with this album is not the cover per se, but that they chose to so adorn an album that was an obvious effort of rebirth (hence the irony of the title). After sliding in the post-Blackfire years into a kind of crusty, mangy punk metal, this album debuts a new lineup and a (partial) return to the crisp thrash of their late 80s heyday. The easy thing to do would have been to commission a fresh painting of Knarrenheinz (their gas-masked mascot) from Andreas Marschall to announce this stylistic backpedal (see: Kreator’s Violent Revolution), and in fact the “censored” cover art is a very shitty painting in this vein, but by using this photographic cover as they did, Sodom could effectively say, “Yes, we’re playing thrash again, but we’ll still do what we want,” and indeed they do, as this album doesn’t shed, entirely, the punky leanings of the several albums before. That they needed a change was obvious from the moribund Masquerade in Blood, but I happened to like Get What You Deserve a lot, even if the larger metal community did not. Till Death Do Us Unite is in that way a good have-their-cake-and-eat-it-too compromise, and it set the stage for the band’s 00s renaissance, culminating with their self-titled 2006 release. (Their newest album, their best since Better Off Dead, is to me the beginning of a fourth era in the Sodom legacy.) While Destruction and Kreator both managed to accrue some progressive cred in the late 80s, Sodom were always the workhorse of the Teutonic three, but this album demonstrated that to underestimate the band’s wit and vision is a mistake.
— Friar Johnsen

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DEFTONES, Deftones  (2003, Maverick)

The skull:
Patriotic colors here, probably not intentional though. Red and blue roses flank each side of the skullface, his head slightly upward with an attitude that says “I don’t care about no stupid flowers, I am a bad ass skull!” No doubt he was pretty upset when the holder of this image folded it up nice and square and stuck it into the pocket that eventually produced the wear-lines you see on this image. Man, this skull is ready to fucking rock, and it’s surrounded by flowers and treated like a damn breakup note passed in 7th grade homeroom class? Skull says, “Bullshit, man…this is such bullshit.”

The music:
Are Deftones metal or not? Does it matter? The only reason it matters here at Big Dumb Skulls is because the Council requires that all entries be metal bands. And the Deftones are metal, they’re just other things too. I’m a huge fan, and the Council approved, so we’ll go with it. There are two main Deftones eras, to my ears: there’s the first two
albums, which skirts a nu-metal line without ever totally falling into it (they were more
often called “alternative metal” back then) and then the game-changing White Pony
and everything that came after. This is the band’s fourth album, self-titled for no good reason, and although it’s got some amazing moments, it’s the least-awesome album from Deftones Era 2. Coincidence that it’s got a skull on the cover? The only reason this album pales in any way to those around it is that a handful of songs, while very good as they’re rolling, don’t stick (such as “Battle-Axe” and “Bloody Cape”). But Deftones greatness is heard in the weirdly twisted “Hexagram,” and more viciousness (especially the seething vocals) in “When Girls Telephone Boys,” and the sumptuous atmospheric layers of “Moana” and “Deathblow.” It’s impossible not to feel moved by the somatic drift of “Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event.” And an all-time career highlight comes in the emotive “Minerva” while the weird experimentalism of “Lucky You” finds the band moving into new areas. Yeah, Deftones are way better than any nu metal band you care to name. The production is totally spot-on — colorful, thick, vibrant, earthy. It’s Terry Date, who has helmed some great records in and outside the metal realm. I just started liking this album even more with this listen, so go ahead, surprise yourself. I did when I first heard White Pony, and I will never call them a nu metal band again.
— Friar Wagner

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ENTOMBED, Entombed (1997, Earache)

The skull:
What we have here is a properly cranky looking skull-and-crossbones stamped into some olde-tyme pirate-booty coin. And then the coin is sorta hazily floating over a peeling coat of lead paint, or something? This is a pretty dashed-off affair that actually recycles the coin image from the band’s earlier Stranger Aeons EP, but in much greater detail. I wonder if this coin is an actual thing that was photographed, or if there’s just a single master image that was manipulated to a greater degree to produce the starker EP image? Who knows. It’s a pretty nice skull, but a pretty hacky recycling.

The music:
Collecting a bunch of EPs, singles, and other ephemera, Entombed is certainly one of the better such compilations in metal history. You’ll get your money’s worth just in the Crawl EP tracks, possibly the three greatest recordings in the band’s history and the reasons for the Council allowing such a dubiously unique cover into the Skullection. On that one EP, recorded after LG Petrov left but before Johnny Dordevic was (nominally) recruited to replace him, Crawl is graced with the awesome guest vocals of Nirvana 2002’s Orvar Säfström. He only did these three songs with the band, but he left his mark as their best vocalist, hands down. The title track would appear later on Clandestine, and “Bitter Loss” originally appeared on “Left Hand Path”, but the versions here are fairly different than their earlier and later counterparts, demonstrating the extent to which Entombed refined their songs through time. A third track, “Forsaken,” is also great. In addition to that EP, this comp also includes the aforementioned Stranger Aeons, which is also quite good, and the Out of Hand and Full of Hell EPs from their deathrock phase, which both feature some fairly good cover songs. A couple other single tracks round out the tracklist. All in all, taken on the strength of the individual songs, this is the last essential Entombed release.
— Friar Johnsen

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HELSTAR, Glory of Chaos  (2010, AFM)

The skull:
2010 was an amazingly prolific year for the big dumb skull. Scan through previous BDS reviews and you’ll see what I mean. It might just have been the best-ever year for skulls and, not coincidentally, was the year this friar’s collection of skull album covers grew exponentially. What does Helstar’s glorious chaos skull offer the Skullection? Not much, although it’s slightly worthy for the ominous, fiery glow that lights that sucker up like a Christmas tree. And then there’s the eight-pointed chaos symbol, its arrow tips sporting all kinds of symbols that probably amount to a lot of mystical malarky when you get right down to it (the RX sign for prescription medicine? Huh?). Anyway, I’m not sure where the glory is, and chaos is only implied by the symbol. Just another half-assed cover idea, I say.

The music:
Whoever thinks Helstar is better as a beefier, thicker, chunkier, faster, more modernized version of its old self is certifiably insane. They’re still “true” metal, and there’s still some great stuff to get out of this album and its predecessor, The King of Hell. James Rivera remains a vocalist of power, control and personality. And Helstar remains one of the best live bands going. I’ve seen them twice and was completely speechless afterwards. But here’s my problem with their new stuff: Glory of Chaos is to old Helstar what Painkiller is to ’70s era Priest. It’s good, but they’ve traded something precious away in dialing down their youthful naivete (Burning Star) and their sense of innovation and discovery (Nosferatu). There are no high or low points on Glory of Chaos, just one sturdy red line of near-thrash metal. “Trinity of Heresy” and “Deathtrap” could have been on A Distant Thunder, but they’re too bloated with down-tuned guitars, while “Monarch of Bloodshed” sounds like old men trying to be way heavier than what comes natural for them. Think Jugulator this time. But the production is throwing me off some. Everything’s way too up front, no real dynamics. It lacks the earthiness of their early stuff…then again I’m not going to sit here and tell you the guitar sound on Burning Star was great, because it wasn’t. You could do worse than listen to this album while the first four Helstar albums are also on your shelf, but for me, I’ll always choose any of those over this. Good luck to ’em, though, because in a perfect world they’d be as popular as Amon Amarth.
— Friar Wagner

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GANGRENATOR, Imminent Gangrene (2008, demo)

The skull:
Blotchy and slimy, this skull is unduly pleased with himself. “Hey ladies?! Who wants a taste of this?” he beckons, resolutely sure of his game. I especially love how he’s able to cock an eyebrow of pure skull. Evidently a bad case of gangrene will really make your bones mushy.

The music:
Pure 80s-style grindcore a la Napalm Death and Carcass. The drum machine doesn’t much rankle because the sound is authentically bad all around. Reek of Putrefaction is not my go-to Carcass album, but if that’s the one you listen to the most, then you might love Gangrenator, but for sure you own worse. And though it was released in 2008, Imminent Gangrene was pressed only on cassette, so basically, all the work to decide if this is a thing you need has been handily encoded in signifiers for you.
— Friar Johnsen