Monthly Archives: December 2013

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NAISSANT, Promo 1999 (1999, demo)

The skull:
Though he bears some similarities to SKULL148, this fellow’s horns are stubbier, less developed, nascent, you could say. But while Takashi’s metallic hornyskull looks to have been fashioned from modelling clay and silver spray paint, Naissant’s cover-adorning BDS is more likely an extreme close up of a chintzy skull ring, possibly obtained for the Greek equivalent of twenty-five cents from a vending machine at a supermarket in Athens. Bonus points are awarded for the drippy, Misfits-esque, best of 1987 horror font. It’s a classic for a reason.

The music:
Reputedly black metal, Naissant left almost no digital trace of this lone recording, released on cassette. Most of the members have gone on to other bands in the Greek scene, but poor ol’ Promo 1999 has thus far failed to inspire even a single upload. While I lament not being able to more fully report on this Big Dumb Skull, I can’t say I’m disappointed that I didn’t have to listen to what is most likely a terrible demo.
— Friar Johnsen

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LEGION666, Outbreak of Evil (2003, Iron Bonehead Productions)

The skull:
Charming in its hand-drawn crudeness, you can’t lose with an inverted crucifix slapped on the forehead and the title lettering dripping blood, or dripping some black shit that looks like blood. Totally “cult” in appearance, the eye holes of this skull have a curiously odd shape about them, looking more like designer sunglasses than legitimate eye sockets. They’d be called “Fat Casket, by Prada,” and this would be the company’s advertisement for said shades. It could happen.

The music:
This is Legion666’s side of a split shared with fellow Canadian black/thrash band Megiddo. Since Legion666’s original music is akin to Amebix meets early Sodom, it’s wholly appropriate that the bands cover Amebix and Sodom on this split. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, eh? So, do Legion666 do anything unusual or interesting with Sodom’s “Outbreak of Evil”? Not really. It recreates the trashy production and unchained ferocity of the original, but it’s crustier in a way where you just know at least half the band wear dreadlocks or have their hair crimped a la Axegrinder. And if they don’t, they should. I guess it’s worth one listen…but only one.
— Friar Wagner

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SLEEPING WITH A CORPSE, Get Fucked (2008, demo)

The skull:
This looks like artschool fuckwad graffiti from some tenth rate Banksy wannabe, except for the logo, which looks like literally thousands of other shitty metalcore logos. The odd choice of spot colors is at least something different, and I applaud the bigness and dumbness of this skull, but that’s it. This could be the AIGA symbol for “Warning: Shitty Music”.

The music:
Man, I fucking hate this sort of guttural deathcore, with its bass drops and stupid slam mosh parts. Adding noodly tapping bits (as SWAC does) only makes it worse, because they’re executed so poorly and only underscore the moronic simplicity of the breakdown riffs. The song titles (like “Who Wrinkled My Randy Travis Poster” and “If You Don’t Chew Big Red Then Fuck You”) try to come off as funny, but this music is so powerfully, overwhelmingly, foundationally unamusing that the token attempts at humor only make me angrier. God damn this shitty fucking band. Depressingly, though this demo was recorded over 5 years ago and is the band’s sole release, they’re still around (or worse: back together) and working on a new demo. What a world, what a world.
— Friar Johnsen

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THE UGLY, Diggin’ Graves  (2006, demo)

The skull:
This skull was apparently caught diggin’ graves and this is pic # 2 of his mug shot. “Turn to the side, please.” So the skull turns to the side and mocks the officer with an open-mouthed sneer. Asshole.

The music:
Overused Sample #2: “To know death, Otto, you have to fuck life…in the gall bladder!” (From 1973’s Flesh for Frankenstein.) Just like that overused “unleash hell” line from Gladiator, it’s a great sample, but has been overused by numerous bands who can’t be bothered to come up with something more original. Of course, sampling itself is borrowing someone else’s work, so how original can you expect them to be? (I’ll answer my own question: Very. Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique is a great example.) It should be no surprise, then, that this Swedish band are none too original, musically. It’s super-fast black metal in the vein of countrymen like Marduk, 1349, The Legion, et al., perhaps a bit more bottom-heavy and modern. But only slightly. It’s played very well too, but is incredibly redundant in the final analysis. What’s most interesting about this band is their imagery, not only this demo but their album cover of two years later, Slaves to the Decay. These look like offerings by some punk’n’roll band, or one of those Black Label Society wanna bes. But no, musically it’s seething Satanic speed and screechy vocals all the way. So give ’em a couple points for avoiding being totally stale.
— Friar Wagner

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SHACKLES, Orgy of Corpses (2005, Beer In Your Ear)

The skull:
A skull with a toupée! Brilliant! Although his flesh is long since decayed, this guy’s polyester rug remains, and he’s become a hopping vermicular hangout. The only orgy happening here strictly involves hot worm-on-worm action, and look at those little nas-tay nematodes go! So many Big Dumb Skulls dwell to excess on the maudlin, but here’s a celebration of life and good times, if only for the wrigglier of God’s creations. Good on Shackles for believing the skull’s half-full.

The music:
With a cover and logo like this, you can be pretty sure that Shackles are gonna play throwback death/thrash, and sure enough, that’s what they do. You know all the usual influences, we’ve listed them here for dozens of other skulls, but since Shackles is Australian, we can throw in Armoured Angel, Slaughter Lord, and Destroyer 666. This is just a shitty rehearsal demo, so if you want to check out Shackles, you’re going to want to look to either their studio demo or debut album. Neither is what I would call “polished” but they’re listenably produced and the latter even includes a few unexpected flourishes, like the church organ in “Orgy of Corpses.” For black and white retro death, I prefer Bones from the US, but Shackles are perfectly fine for when you’re feeling ’86. Were perfectly fine, I should say. They released that one album in 2009 and then broke up. You can’t keep a good band down, I guess.
— Friar Johnsen

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RUNEMAGICK, Ancient Incantations (2001, Aftermath Music)

The skull:
Here’s an incantation for ya: “Oh Beelzebuth, lord of flies and prince of demons, do summon, through the most potent necromancy, and through the careful placing of runes under a violet moon, to thus invert the power of the white Christ, transfixed and transferred, unto mine goofy looking buck teeth, so that I may be a truly foreboding skull and cast this dorky-looking redneck-ish visage to the darkest past. And, if thou wouldst hear me, please also do make sure Aftermath Music sells every single copy of this most kult 7″ record, and with great haste, so that they may continue to release Runemagick album after Runemagick album after Runemagick album. I shall await your verdict and spell.”

The music:
This 7″ came out at the opportune time, marking Runemagick’s transition from a mostly death metal-leaning death/doom band to the more doom-centric death/doom they would master on 2002’s excellent Requiem of the Apocalypse. If that sounds like splitting hairs, it is, but it bears noting, because Runemagick’s sound became a more potent and memorable force as of Requiem (until they squandered it and bled it dry several albums down the road). Here we have demo material from earlier days, and it’s solid stuff that merges the otherworldly evil of traditional Swedish death metal with the doom-laden crawl that Autopsy favors. Runemagick’s doom runs deep and true, recalling the riffing style of Candlemass with some Trouble-like melodic choices occasionally, all of it played and recorded with a frustrating dryness. Ultimately it’s a bit uninspiring, save for the glorious climactic ending of “Dominion of the Necrogods.” As I said, they would find their muse with Requiem of the Apocalypse, and its successor Moon of the Chaos Eclipse. So this is a stop-gap sort of release, one that can hardly be considered mandatory unless you are a Nicklas Rudolfsson completist (he has also recorded with Deathwitch, Swordmaster, The Funeral Orchestra, and Sacramentum, among others).
— Friar Wagner

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MANDATORY, Exiled in Pain (2008, Obliteration)

The skull:
This skull was walloped so hard that he flew right out of somebody’s face and somehow ejected his eye at an even greater velocity. This is pretty funny on its own, but you can see lots of other eyes in the background, suggesting that wherever this guy has been exiled, this sort of thing happens all the time. I imagine some infinite dimension of high velocity skulls (and their attendant eyes), all of them shrieking some variation on, “This is the worst!” But unless the skull launching happens from a single, central point, some of these skulls are going to start colliding, and then they’re going to learn the real meaning of pain!

The music:
Exiled in Pain collects all of Mandatory’s demos, which date from the early 00s but sound like relics of early 90s. Entombed are the primary influence, but the many slower sections sound like remedial Bolt Thrower riffs, and occasionally the band throws in some nods to primeval Florida death metal like Massacre. The production is more or less uniformly boxy and cheap, but that was probably by design, as Mandatory are clearly a nostalgia act. They’re not bad, but there were SO many Entombed knockoffs kicking around when that band was still great (which was a really long time ago), and pretty much all of of them are better on average than Mandatory, but if you’ve collected it all and you still need more Scandinavian death metal (even if it’s made by a German band) then Mandatory might be… something something… trying so hard not to make a joke about the band’s name… must… be… strong…
— Friar Johnsen

…an option. God damn it.

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DAETHLUST, The Deliverer  (2013, self-released)

The skull:
I was so hoping this was some art house-metal weirdness, because that’s exactly what it looks like. They’re actually stoner/sludge/doom, and more on that in a minute, but the juxtaposition of black and pink, with a hooded skull that looks like a borrowed still from one of the Blind Dead movies — it’s a different sort of skull cover, and a refreshing change of pace for the Skullection. Its arty pretension works for me, right down to the creepy scrawl of the album title, but I wonder if the white half circle is part of the actual artwork, or just one of those sticker dots that holds the CD inside the cardboard jacket? I don’t like this band enough to order it and find out.

The music:
5 songs, 36 minutes, and a sound that’s described as “psychedelic doom metal/stoner rock.” I wasn’t expecting much from these Germans, but they’re okay, especially if you can’t get enough stonery stuff. Still, it’s “in one ear and out the other” music at this early stage in the band’s development. The axis of this style is the guitar sound, and Daethlust’s tone is ultra-fat, out-fuzzing Kyuss at their best. Unsurprisingly, that band significantly informs Daethlust’s sound, along with early Monster Magnet, Motorhead, Egg Nog-era Melvins and early Nirvana. They’re barely metal, by my definition, but they do bring a heaving heaviness to the table, and there are enough metal touch points to slip them into the Skullection. Usually they’re just trudging through the footprints of the dinosaurs that went before them, but every now and then (as in the break and following softer moment in “Satin”) they get something interesting going. But 90% of the time they’re derivative, and with something like “Hash,” they’re epically dull. They deliver it all in earnest, and they’re young, so maybe they’ll find their own certain something pretty soon.
— Friar Wagner

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EXCOMMUNICATED, Skeleton Key (2011, UW)

The skull:
The ol’ skull and crossbones motif gets a fresh coat of paint with a couple of keys and a priest’s fascia (that’s the sashy thing taking the usual place of a rolled parchment or whatever.) It’s obviously not a design of stunning originality, but its nevertheless a fresh take on a stale concept, and the components of the illustration are nice looking, to boot. It would be nice if someone ever took the time to make the copied and pasted elements look like two different things, but maybe I’m asking too much. And lastly, I question the wisdom of putting two keys on an album called Skeleton Key, singular, but I guess I’ve just got a hard-on for concordance in design.

The music:
Excommunicated play a slightly melodicized, slightly blackened take on Morbid Angel style death metal minus the Azagthothian weirdness but with the addition of a healthy dose of doom death. They’re moderately ambitious without being particularly complicated, and their music is certainly moody and well-fitted to the overarching theme, which concerns the crimes and excesses of the medieval Catholic Church. Lots of bands sing about the Inquisition with an anti-Christian slant, but Excommunicated really go whole hog with the concept, weaving in snippets of sacred music, spoken-word passages of historical texts, and other bits of liturgical color. While I’m never bowled over, exactly, by the music, I really appreciate Excommunicated’s commitment to the bit, which never descends to parodic blasphemy. There’s enough variety, too, to keep the album from ever getting boring. It’s an impressive debut that might be a little too classy for the meat and potatoes death metal crowd, but if it does find purchase in that scene the band should do well.
— Friar Johnsen

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BLOODRIDE, Promo 2007  (2007, demo)

The skull:
These Finns are wholly dedicted to the skull. Of their five various releases, four feature some form of skull. The Supreme Predator “single” features a sabertooth skull; amongst the various animal skulls we see here at BDSHQ, it’s one of the most popular animal variations (second only to the longhorn steer). Bloodride have done their part for human skull covers too, which is why the Council, in a rare bout of generosity, have allowed two Bloodride entries into the hallowed Skullection (309 was the first). This one puts the BIG in Big Dumb Skull: we barely see the left eye socket, and there’s no dental work showing, but we know it’s a skull, there can be no doubt of it! The colors make it feel sorta Christmas-y. Just in time, boys! The image is broken into four sections, which is curious, and makes me wonder if this is a closeup of one of the band members’ custom kitchen tile pattern. If so, I need that tile-setter’s number, now.

The music:
Friar Johnsen went into greater detail on Bloodride’s sound in his earlier review of the band’s Crowned in  Hell album, and I can only reprint his views here: “The sound of thrash that’s been reverse-engineered by death metal kids after they hear Bonded By Blood,” sayeth the good Friar. I cannot put it any better than that. It’s all capably delivered, which is no surprise considering these boys are Finnish. Still, who listens to this sort of thing? Adding to the annoyance of Bloodride’s approach are the guitars, which are chunked out in a way that Machine Head fans could relate to. Compositionally these three songs are similar to the kind of early ’90s fourth-rate demo-level Sepultura  wanna-bes that you’d hear a lot back then, or if you can image a hipster-metal/modern aggro version of Acrophet. See? Not at all worth your while.
— Friar Wagner