Monthly Archives: December 2013

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CHOREA, Vultures / All Shit 7″  (1989, self-released)

The skull:
One year of skulls, and we couldn’t ask for a better send off to 2013. This ridiculous fellow looks like a reject from The Outer Limits’ prop room, all cheap styrofoam and spray paint. The eyes, those comically tiny eyes, were almost certainly pried off a cheap teddy bear, and the teeth might actually be kernels of corn. There are so many of them! A glorious mouthful of oversized choppers. And the look on his face is no-nonsense: “Yeah, yeah, I’m an ugly bastard. I know it and you know it. That’s life, man! Or death, am I right? So, let’s just get down to business…” whatever that sordid business might be.

The music:
Isten calls Chorea speed metal without much further comment, which probably doesn’t bode well for their quality. In any case, there is no audible record of this release on the interwebs, but the guitarist was also in Purity, whose first album is one of the fun, forgotten records that never really had a chance on Black Mark. I also have a soft spot for that band for covering The Police. Alas, Purity are not Chorea, and neither do they have a BDS under their belt, but I must make do with the materials provided me.
— Friar Johnsen

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NECROCURSE, Chaos Carnage Cataclysm  (2011, Aftermath Music)

The skull:
If you’re familiar with Marvel Comics circa the 1960s/’70s, you might remember an artist named Gene Colan. And if you do, you’ll understand why I look at the Necrocurse artwork for Chaos Carnage Cataclysm and see his style all over it. In his most macabre moments, Colan drew like he was tripping on acid with each stroke, the features of his characters eerily rendered and just slightly out of proportion. And then some of his stuff looked like quick sketches, as if he was pressed for time. Whatever the case, his is an instantly recognizable style and one relegated to comics’ old school. I’d be surprised if whoever drew this cover for Necrocurse wasn’t influenced by Gene Colan. It’s got that trippy phantasmagoria he was so good at capturing. And look at the disaster that the skull’s eyeballs have endured! (Don’t worry about the fact that there are three eyeballs pictured — a minor detail, move along, nothing to see here.) Despite the cobweb (another incidental detail — work with me here), you get the sense we’re witnessing this skull’s first moments of actually being a skull, his living human features (skin, blood, eyeballs) having been melted off just minutes before this particular frame, probably thanks to some kind of satanic curse. Like, a necro curse.

The music:
Add Necrocurse to the long resume of one Nicklas Rudolfsson (Runemagick, Deathwitch, Swordmaster, amongst others). He plays drums here, and it’s no huge surprise (or leap) that Necrocurse plays brutal Swedish death metal akin to early Runemagick. You might have guessed it already, but lemme spell it out for you: there’s not one iota of originality
here. There’s another Swedish metal luminary present, one Hellbutcher, from the much-lauded Nifelheim. You have to wonder what Mr. Butcher is getting out of this experience that he doesn’t out of Nifelheim. Fatter guitar sound? The fairly regular release schedule of a more prolific band than Nifelheim? Whatever it is, it reminds of when Glen Benton of Satanic death metallers Deicide briefly joined Satanic death metallers Vital Remains because he wanted to, you know, spread his wings. There are two songs on this 7″, the band’s debut, and they have offered a handful of other releases since, a frequency which must have Hellbutcher’s head spinning. Personally, I’d rather see a new Nifelheim album than another Necrocurse release. This band is fine, but recommended only to the anal-retentive SDM completist who cannot get enough.
— Friar Wagner

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BLASTANUS, Odd  (2009, self-released)

The skull:
Odd Firth is the disowned heir to the Vic Firth drumstick dynasty. His ouster from the family and the resulting loss of the family fortune compelled him to seek revenge on skulls by stabbing them in the eye sockets with his own custom made drumsticks. One such incident is depicted here. Fortunately for this particular skull, a drumstick in the eye socket is just the thing with which to kick off a lazy Sunday afternoon. Now if only Vic himself would ram one in the left socket and make it a complete stick-in-socket overload of a bonegasm. Also, this guy sports some of the finest choppers we’ve ever seen on a skull.

The music:
Here at Big Dumb Skulls, we’re often forced to acknowledge the above-average abilities of the average Finnish metal band. But we can’t keep giving every Finn-band a pass if their music stinks, and that brings Blastanus right into the firing line, because this is totally functionless death/grind, beyond whatever kicks it gives to the musicians involved. There was no need for them to share this entirely unentertaining album with the rest of the world. You can safely skip it. Interestingly, this album came out just before they added a saxophonist, which I’m sure made all the difference in their musical quality. (Yeah, right.)
— Friar Wagner

 

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MASTIFAL, Holocausto Mental  (2000, self-released)

The skull:
Dig the skull and crossbones in the logo, which shows great dedication to the BDS way of life. As for the big skull on the cover, he’s going through some tough times right now so will you just lay off? Stuck out in the desert, and just getting used to that bullshit, when suddenly the top half of his bony noggin starts to combust. You get the feeling that by the time you get around to the next frame in the sequence the skull is going to be nothing but dust. Sad really — he was rendered so well. We thought he was gonna make it.

The music:
First, these arrangements are messy. It’s like they came up with riff ideas and then laid them down in the order they were conceived. And the dude’s vocals sound silly, which is unintentional of course, as he’s doing his damnedest to out-Max late ’80s Max Cavalera and making a dumb mess of it, all bloated, dorky-sounding fake hate. On the plus side, every now and then they’ll come up with a really good sequence, like the beginning of “Fabricia de Monos,” and there’s an energy here that’s laudable in its pedal-to-the-metal wildness. But, ultimately, this is sub-Sepultura/post-Sepultura that reminds us of two things: 1) the original is still the best, and 2) Sepultura really, really sucks nowadays. (It’s not all Sepultura worship: I hear shades of Dorsal Atlantica here too.) Props to Mastifal for doing what they do since 1998, and apparently they’ve morphed from the old death/thrash style heard here to a more streamlined type of melodic death metal. Somebody out there likes them a lot, I guess.
— Friar Wagner

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SPIRITUAL HOLOCAUST, Salute the Death (2010, demo)

The skull:
The best kind of skull for a Big Dumb Skull cover, of course, is a physical object, photographed for the occasion, and Spiritual Holocaust have delivered at least that, it must be said. But, The Council and we Friars would prefer that at least some effort were put into disguising the white plastic skull you bought at the Halloween store as something that might have once encased an actual human brain. Spiritual Holocaust seems to even recognize the lameness of their skull, as their members have been here caught on film in the middle of a pathetic game of hot potato, one guy trying to pass off the shoddy dimestore replica skull on his fellow. There is no escaping this shame, though.

The music:
Mid-paced Finnish death metal. Not melodic, but not totally assonant, either. Being Finnish, and of recent vintage, Spiritual Holocaust are totally capable, and no one can impugn their skill as players, but their late-to-the-party Swedish-style death metal is as artlessly made as it is professionally produced. If you’re a die-hard for this sort of thing, or if you’re in the market for a farm-league Demigod, then you might add these guys to your collection without a second thought, but it’s highly unlikely they’d get a second listen. You’d spin Salute the Death (or, more likely, their lone full length album) once, think, “That was pretty good,” and then forget about them almost forever, until one of the guitarists ends up in a slightly better band, and you notice a mention of Spiritual Holocaust in their bio, and you absently think to yourself, “I think I have one of their discs…” before drifting to another, even less interesting thought. In fact, I just had to double-check who I was writing about in the first place. Potent mediocrity!
— Friar Johnsen

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NYOGTHAEBLISZ, Progenitors of Mankind’s Annihilation  (2003, demo)

The skull:
Bonus points for the super-great logo, which drips in complete harmony with the skull itself, which looks like it’s starting to melt. Maybe a contact lens with the radiation symbol on it wasn’t a good choice after all. Fucking jokers at Lenscrafters, the skull went in and just wanted something rebellious. Gotta watch out for those assholes. Guess it’s back to stupid clunky glasses for the Nyogthaeblisz skull. (Nickname: Spencer, in the tradition of Eddie and Vic Rattlehead and all that.)

The music:
Just when I thought I’d heard the most necrolicious black metal ever recorded comes Nyogthazeirqfkdafldblitz. While this demo has got the basement/cave quality of something like Ildjarn, in its most frenzied moments (like, most all of it) it sounds closer to a lo-fi Merzbow than a Gorgoroth or Horna or whatever. You could argue that it’s high art in its disorienting, blurry, beyond-extreme approach, but even for somebody that can take extremity at its most distant outer fringes, there’s nothing offered here that would make me return a second time. I do like how they mix deeply chaotic dark occult black metal imagery with post-nuclear imagery, lots of “bioterroristic” this and “thermonuclear” that. As this 23-minute demo reaches about the nine minute mark, I feel like I’ve heard it all, these guys making early Anaal Nathrakh and those ancient Mayhem demos sound trite and safe by comparison, but without any graspable substance. Nah, I kid, these boys are gonna take it all the way to the top! It’s something everyone can enjoy, and I see nothing but success on the horizon for these ghoulish Texas-born shock-rockers — they just need to change the name to something more chant-able at the summer festivals.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL359

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GANG, V (2010, Emanes Metal)

The skull:
Well, it’s big, that’s for sure. And the single eye is pretty awesome, despite the absolutely terrible Photoshop paste job. This is an ugly, lazy cover, make no mistake! The candles at least sort of set the scene, but the pentagram logo is a little distracting (it could certainly be better integrated) and the standard-issue brown wash that swamps the entire cover is a drag. Plus, it’s Christmas morning, and the Council gifted me a one-of-a-kind LP pressed in sterling silver of Megadeth’s Killing Is My Business… and I’d much rather be listening to that than critiquing this crappy French skull. Of course, the Council and we friars acknowledge no God but The Skull, but we all enjoy the gift-giving and camaraderie of the holiday season, not to mention the heavily boozed dairy beverages.

The music:
This totally un-Googlable album is a nice slice of melodic trad metal that nevertheless sounds more or less modern and not at all retro. Listening to V, the bands that immediately spring to mind are Artch and Hell (the new lineup, with Andy Sneap), although I offer these only as points of comparison, not to suggest that Gang were influenced by either band. Mercyful Fate are probably the common ancestor, although Gang doesn’t make a great effort to establish any occult vibe. The singer has a nasal delivery and a narrow range, but he puts his voice to good and dramatic use, and the riffing is solid and largely catchy. The drums sound programmed to me, but they’re basically alright sounding, and the rest of the production is perfectly fine. Gang aren’t about to become my new favorite band, but they’re pretty decent, and certainly good enough to get me to check out the rest of their fairly significant discography.
— Friar Johnsen

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MAD MAZE, No Time Left… (2010, self-released)

The skull:
There isn’t much that thrills this Friar more than skull covers, but the hourglass motif comes close. There are around 50 of them in the metal universe, by my current count, and while they’re obviously not as prevalent as tanks and pentagrams, there’s just something about the hourglass. It was a motif popularized by the mid-’90s post-Dream Theater prog metal crowd, but lots of other bands have gotten into the act too. And looky here, a Skullglass, just in time for Christmas! If you add bonus points (and I most certainly will) for the skullglass sitting atop the Earth (meaning this thing measures an ungodly size) and having a freaking maze (a “mad” one, we’re assuming) on top of the skull’s flat head, hey, you have Big Dumb Skulls GOLD here.

The music:
It was bound to happen with all this thrash being thrown at us lately (lotsa Brazilian stuff, Mexican, German, and now this Italian band) — something was going to rise above the rest. Mad Maze are so good that I can only applaud their efforts. And they’re one of few bands I’ve gotten an earful of via Big Dumb Skulls that I’ve actually gone back and listened to voluntarily, after my BDS duties have been fulfilled. They’re basically North American in approach: a heavy whiff of Testament, cleaner Exodus, some Anthrax, Annihilator, and back to the Bay Area. And while they draw as many comparisons to older thrash legends as the other retro-thrash bands do, there’s something about Mad Maze that doesn’t make you want to retch. They are, in fact, quite excellent. The vocals are standard tough guy thrash bellows, basically Chuck Billy-ish, but still defying any truly easy comparison. They’re the weakest element of No Time Left, but every now and then they also impress (as when he pushes into a higher register scream at the end of the opening track). The rhythm section is noticeably good, a capable couple of guys, nimble at the speediest of times and weaving through various tempo shirts with great dexterity. But it’s the lead guitar work that’s most impressive. I’m not sure who to credit here, as they have two guitarists, but when they break into solos I’m reminded of Alex Skolnick around the time of Practice What You Preach, complete with the clean, punchy rhythm backup he got on that album. Yeah, there’s a heavy Testament vibe here, and while I love the first three Testament albums, I don’t really care to hear an Italian version of them, yet here I am, legitimately enjoying Mad Maze. Opener “Lord of All That Remains” is the standout of this short 4-song EP, and if they have even a few songs in that vein on the follow-up full-length, Frames of Alienation, I would gladly give it a listen. There are seemingly a couple hundred new Italian thrash bands playing in the old style, and of the ones I’ve heard (maybe about 30 of them), these guys are the best. Each song offers an event or two that feel relatively unique, using familiar ingredients while also finding a way to also deliver a distinctive Mad Maze stamp. And you can’t say that for most of these other re-thrashers.
— Friar Wagner

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DESMADRATION, Sex, Thrash and Fucking Beers! (2010, demo)

The skull:
No sex. No fucking beers. Just a blood spattered skull (and a pitifully small one at that) to signify thrash. In all things, Desmadration can be counted on to deliver at 33% of peak. At best!

The music:
If Sadus had released four demos before D.T.P., the second one might have sounded like this. Super juvenile thrash played by amateurs and recorded with a boom box. This even comes with the high whine of a poorly aligned tape head, for added authenticity, although I believe the demo was distributed as a highly untrue CDR. Obviously, this is not a band that takes itself too seriously, and I’ve heard worse sounding demos with shittier songs, but my patience for Z-grade rethrash from the warmer nations is beyond strained at this point. I’m at my breaking point, basically. Desmadration are Mexican instead of Brazilian (and if you know your shit well enough, you can already imagine the subtle differences between the respective thrash of those two nations, which are evident here) but they’re still awful and stupid. Will my suffering never end?
— Friar Johnsen

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REPENT, Deadly Thrash Attack  (2001, demo)

The skull:
“Howdy! Come on in! Flip up your ballcap brims and skank along with Repent, Germany’s premier thrash metal revival band! We love thrash, especially really thrashy thrash! Come on, you can trust a goony smiling skull like me — this is your life, your thrash!”

The music:
Don’t listen to the skull. He crazy. This band have been pumping out dull assembly-line thrash since 1997, stuff that sounds like third rate Brit-thrash circa 1992. Just what you need, right? Since they’ve been doing it for almost two decades, their tenacity is noted. But pretty much all their releases utilize a skull, or skulls, or skeletons, in various combinations, showing this band is bereft of original ideas across the board and proven over the duration of this 6-song, 19-minute exercise in redundancy.
— Friar Wagner