SKULL414

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Friar Wagner

HAWAII, Loud, Wild and Heavy (1984, Important)

The skull:
Marty Friedman and company heard there was a skull out there with a birthmark that looks uncannily like the Hawaii island chain. They were like “We must have that guy immediately for our album cover.” They sent out a carrier vulture (such are the communications fowl in Hawaii) and it came back with this bad-ass looking skull. Mission accomplished. As for the flower, it could probably pass as the state flower (Hawaiian hibiscus). Kinda surprising they didn’t try to fit palm trees or a picture of Don Ho into the artwork, but we get it: you’re called Hawaii and you’re from Hawaii. Very novel, boys.

The music:
My first impression of Hawaii was through Aloha on Metal Massacre 2 and then Hawaii’s 1983 One Nation Underground album. Both struck me as scrappy and I never ventured further with this band. I didn’t listen to them again until my duties at Big Dumb Skulls found me face-to-face with the successor to One Nation Underground, this four-song EP. Loud, Wild and Heavy is solid enough, but it’s hardly great. It’s just one degree more metal than early Motley Crue, and might as well be one of those California bands like Crue, Ratt or Black ‘N’ Blue who toed the line between glammy hard rock and dirty Sunset strip heavy metal a la early Armored Saint and Odin. Vocalist Eddie Day talk-sings and sometimes growls his way through these standard-issue trad-metal tunes with attitude, and the musicians are tight, their delivery strong, their capabilities notable. There are some cool proto-power metal guitar lines in the middle of the title track; the chorus of “Escape the Night” sounds like something Dawnbringer might come up with; and instrumental “Rhapsody in Black” presages the symphonic power metal that would absolutely erupt out of Europe a decade later. Still, there were so many other better, more interesting releases that came out of the early/mid ’80s traditional heavy metal movement that this remains second rate. Yes, Marty Friedman graduated from junior high school janitor to Ivy League professor when he jumped from Hawaii to Megadeth. (Yes, I know about Cacophony in between, but then my stupid scholastic analogy is ruined.)
— Friar Wagner

SKULL413

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Friar Johnsen

SINISTER REALM, The Crystal Eye (2011, Shadow Kingdom)

The skull:
This is the best kind of bad Photoshoppery, the kind that makes a cheap photo look even cheaper in the service of adding a sword and a glowing gem (I guess that’s the crystal eye?) It would have been easy for the artist to toss in some swirling brown background, or some lightning bolts or fire or something, but no, he kept it simple, kept it true. Black background, slightly out-of-focus skull, big sword that appears to mysterious emanate from the side of said skull, and some highly lame typography. While it would of course have been preferable to actually assemble all these pieces and shoot them in situ, even The Council realizes that modern metal bands are highly budget-constrained and are therefore willing to overlook any shortcut that nevertheless yields such a ridiculous Big Dumb Skull. The Crystal Eye: it’s gonna getcha!

The music:
Sinister Realm, previously featured all they way back at SKULL35, work in the medium of mid-paced true metal, a la latter day Dio (with some nods to early Jag Panzer as well). And like Dio’s last however many albums, Sinister Realm suffers for lack of variation in tempo (especially for lack of any real upbeat numbers) but they more or less make it work on the strength of the songs and singing. Vocalist Alex Kristoff has a powerful, meaty voice that commands respect and brings focus to the songs even when a few more ass-kicking riffs wouldn’t have hurt. Of the three Sinister Realm full-length albums, I’d say The Crystal Eye is the best by a nose, thanks largely to the harmonic depth of songs like “The Tower is Burning,” and if you like similar American bands like Argus or Jag Panzer (at their slowest), then Sinister Realm are likely to twist your nipples as well.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL412

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Friar Wagner

MOSFET, Deathlike Thrash ‘N’ Roll (2012, Refused)

The skull:
Uh oh. This one snuck past the Council’s normally very strict standards. We can clearly see there is more than one skull here. Perhaps the four in the corners were considered so much a decorative part of the border that they were dismissed as mere accoutrement. I don’t know. Somebody’s slipping over there, but I’m not one to criticize the Council so I shall refrain any further comment before they demote me from Friar to Janitor. The skull here, the main one, he’s a shit-kickin’ dust-dog! Smokin’, grinnin’, squintin’, replete with cowboy hat, wings, blood spatter and crossbones. Tattoo-ready! Too bad about the lame band name, but you can tell your tattoo artist to just skip that part. And you’ll save money too.

The music:
Seriously? Are you seriously a deathlike thrash ‘n’ roll band that called your second album Deathlike Thrash ‘n’ Roll??? Mosfet, thank you so much for saving me time! What a lucky break. Here I was, tired of handing out negative reviews to all these mediocre bands and thought “I’m gonna give this Mosfet a little gift and review their album in a totally objective manner, not telling how it is, but only what it is.” But they already did that. Time to kick my feet up and sip on a pina colada from a hollowed-out coconut and take a snooze in the ol’ hammock. Love ya, Mosfet! (Okay, I did listen to the album, couldn’t resist, and stylistically it bears a few similarities to mid-era Sodom, around Masquerade in Blood and Get What You Deserve, and they deliver it professionally enough. It is, indeed, deathlike thrash ‘n’ roll.)
— Friar Wagner

SKULL411

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Friar Johnsen

LAST ETERNAL BREATH, From a Tormented Soul (2011, demo)

The skull:
This one is a textbook example of a skull photo scanned from a textbook. It’s a photo taken without even the slightest artistry, but the skull is quite large, and if nothing else the 3/4-from-the-top profile is something we don’t see too often in the BDS compound. The chunks of what looks like concrete are the only fun detail here. I imagine that the former owner of this skull tried eating them, maybe while high on PCP, and puked them up in his last eternal barf. His final thought was, “Fuck. They’re totally going to figure out that I was eating cement. I’m gonna look so stupid.”

The music:
Busy, technical death metal not unlike Decrepit Birth or Obscura, although not as brutal as the former nor as exploratory as the latter, Last Eternal Breath are nevertheless a fairly good example of the form. This demo is not especially well-recorded, but it’s not horrible sounding either, and it’s a pleasant change of pace to hear music like this that hasn’t been sampled and quantized to death. This is very much the sound of a band who could only afford four days to record and mix, and rehearsed the shit out of their material in advance of their studio session. These days, “technical death metal” can mean a lot of things, and in most cases, it means I’m not gonna like it, but these guys fall in that narrow range that appeals to me, even if I can’t wholeheartedly endorse them. A little more time spent on songwriting and developing at least one original hook would help, but even if they just polish what they’ve got to a high sheen, they’ll be good enough to compete with all but the very best bands working this style in no time. And even at that, they’re already much better than most of the bands on Unique Leader.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL410

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Friar Wagner

ASYLIUM, An Architecture of Human Desolation (2011, Necrotic)

The skull:
This Swedish band is extremely skull-friendly. We’ll get to the album cover in a sec, but we must note that their label (from Illinois, interestingly enough) has a logo that features a skull, and the guitarist in the band wears a hoodie that shows a humongous air-brushed skull on it. Good on ya, Fredrik Lundell! The cover itself is not too bad, although it’s hard to glean any real meaning from it. Just as the band’s pretty cool logo is entangled in barbed wire, so the skull is entangled in stringy black threads, perhaps the very threads of sanity, or perhaps the twig-like ends of tree branches that are also seen in the right half of the artwork background. The skull looks longingly off into the distance — this is yet another sub-set of Big Dumb Skull covers, the “contemplative side-view skull.” He apparently keeps up diligently with his dental hygiene, having a mouth full of gleaming white choppers.

The music:
I’m always skeptical when a Swedish death metal band is made up of members who have not played in any other bands (excepting their drummer, but his other two bands are ones you’ve never heard of). It’s just not the way this Swedish scene runs its business. So, how are they? They’re fine, thank you. No seriously, they’re fine. And, the more I listen, the more I think they’re a step or two above “fine.” They’re very heavy, with a scathing, super-intense thrash thread running through their death metal, almost as if Merciless reformed again and tried to outblast the modern death metal competition. Their guitar sound is less of the bloated, Grave-like/Dismember-esque sort of thing and more like Liers In Wait or the like, that sinewy, psychotic sound typical of the original Gothenburg bands. They really do resemble an updated version of Liers In Wait, and there’s a melodic progression that reminds me of Eucharist in “An Eternity of Human Decay.” They also recall the great and underrated Uncanny, complete with the ultra-seething, frantic momentum, super-abrupt time changes and otherworldly atmosphere. Vocally it’s all pretty deathly, nothing very distinctive but a good throaty delivery imbued with plenty of power; at the very least it lets you know this is very goddamned Swedish. Yep, if you dig Uncanny and Liers In Wait and want something along those lines with a slightly fuller, more modern production, Asylium and this album will fit the bill.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL409

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Friar Johnsen

GRAVEWORM, Collateral Defect (2007, Massacre)

The skull:
This would have been a lot more successful if they’d actually painted a crouching naked person to look like a skull, instead of just photoshopping a couple arms onto a skull. What was supposed (I assume) to be some kind of trompe l’oeil ends up looking like a skull sprouting limbs because he can’t think of a better way to get off this cover. You can imagine him grunting as with epic constipation, trying to squeeze out a couple legs so he can beat feet. “Man, I have GOT to get the hell off this Graveworm album. Shit, am I supposed to be in the sky or on the ground? Who can fucking tell? Feets, don’t fail me now!” But the feets, alas, have failed him indeed.

The music:
It seems like Italy’s Graveworm has always been around, always been mediocre. They hearken back to the first wave of shoddy melodic death metal knockoffs from outside of Scandinavia. Back in the early aughts, I heard Graveworm and thought, “This is okay, but there are really much better bands doing this.” Now, I listen Graveworm and think, “This is okay, but do we really still need any bands doing this?” At their worst, they sound like a cheap version of Children of Bodom, dressing up shitty power metal as teen-tough death metal. Fortunately, this is not their primary operating mode. Unfortunately, their primary mode entails highly generic, low-riff-density modern thrash mixed with gothic metal. Remember that shit? At least they don’t resort to contracting half the singing out to some “siren” putting her high school voice lessons to use, but it probably wouldn’t hurt if there were someone else working the mic besides Stefano Fiori, who fails to convince with growls, rasps, and every other technique he employs. I will say that I sort of enjoy the keyboards, though, and that in itself is somewhat remarkable. It’s not that Sabine Mair possesses any unique technical skill, and her keys are almost entirely atmospheric, but they frequently are the only interesting element in this otherwise drab music. Yes, she overuses her “strings” and “organ” patches for padding chords, but from time to time she busts out some neat little effect that really enlivens the tune, as with the spacey synth blooping that successfully distracts from the garden variety, power-ballad acoustic guitars in “Memories.” The keys are not enough to make Graveworm good, or at least not great, because really they’re not bad at all. It’s just that you’d probably have to be a very boring person to get excited by music that’s this middle-of-the-road.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL408

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Friar Wagner

FLEURETY, Department of Apocalyptic Affairs (2000, Supernal)

The skull:
This album has four different covers that the owner can choose to display. Fleurety were prescient enough to understand that there would someday be a blog that fetishized skull album covers, making sure one of the cover choices featured a skull. Naturally they would want a piece of this action. What’s happening here is pretty simple: a grenade is cock-blocking the skull’s big moment in the spotlight. Skull thought he’d be the envy of all his skull friends, but nope, this asshole grenade nudged into the shot at the last minute. And who’s gonna argue with a grenade?

The music:
This album is just barely metal, residing on the genre’s outer fringes in what we might as well call the “avant-garde.” Fleurety’s early material remains some of the best and most interesting Norwegian black metal ever recorded, and with the EP that precedes this album (1999’s Last-Minute Lies), the Fleurety duo did what most good Norwegian black metal bands do — they went weird. The resulting follow-up, Department of Apocalyptic Affairs, is perhaps the weirdest of the Norwegian post-black metal oddities, at least of the listenable ones. (Zweizz is probably the weirdest, but that’s so over-the-edge weird that it’s easy to disregard as pure junk. Zweizz is one-half of the Fleurety duo, by the way.) At its best, this is akin to Arcturus in the second album era (La Masquerade Infernale) stretching into the territory of Ulver’s fourth (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell) with a desire to rid themselves of the metal altogether and worship at the altar of Bjork and the weirdest of Radiohead’s b-sides. But it’s never quite as good as that sounds on paper. At its worst, it’s an incoherent mess, as heard on opener “Exterminators.” Yet my enthusiasm (fuck it, I’ll call it like it is: it’s total lust) for this whole movement makes the whole thing endearing despite its faults. Pretty amazing cast of guest performers too: key members of Arcturus, Ulver, Ved Buens Ende, Virus, Mayhem, Winds, and Beyond Dawn. It’s a really nice package as well, with all those different covers and a nifty folder that houses individual cards for each song, credits, and pictures. Thanks to the Discogs.com marketplace I finally picked up a real copy, an item that had been high on my want-list for a long time (I don’t totally remember why I didn’t buy it when it was first released). I probably won’t display the cover with the teddy bear and the grenade — will probably go with the skull panel. That seems the natural choice, but I must admit I’m being tempted by the lemon grenade cover (lemon-nade?).
— Friar Wagner

SKULL407

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Friar Wagner

HATESPHERE, The Killing EP (2005, Steamhammer)

The skull:
“That logo look tasteeee, me want to eeeeat!!!” says Cookie Monster-inspired skull Logo Monster. He eats nothing but logos, and finds the Danish ones especially delicious. “Chomp chomp chomp, nom nom nom,” he grunts as he eats. [Observant readers will note that yesterday’s skull, and, incidentally, a Hatesphere-related band, also features a cover with rays emanating from the skull. Apparently Danish metal bands are into rays emanating from skulls. We can offer no reasonable explanation for this.]

The music:
I had very little liking for groove/macho/aggro metal before starting Big Dumb Skulls, and have even less tolerance for it now. Seems these sorts of bands default to the skull more often than most other metal sub-genres. Not surprising, given that its founded on unoriginality and junior high-level subject matter. Oh, “Murderous Intent” is about “revenge” and “vengeance” you remind me?! I see, yes. And “You’re the Enemy” is about retribution. Okay. And I see “The Will of God” is about corrupt priests. So perhaps I’ve been too harsh on Hatesphere, who are clearly treading original ground here. Except for the cover song, “Trip at the Brain” (Suicidal Tendencies), but hey, great choice, that’s a classic.

Come on, I’m being sarcastic. This is lame metal for dumb jocks. They may call it “death/thrash,” but it’s just as easily categorized in the groove/macho/aggro slot. While it’s delivered quite competently, it’s about as exciting as any given Carnal Forge album. Seriously, does anyone really like this kind of sub-sub-sub Pantera-meets-The Haunted-meets-metalcore kinda stuff? There’s a copy on Amazon for one dollar and 35 cents, but even that is way too much to pay.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL406

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Friar Wagner

THE KANDIDATE, Facing the Imminent Prospect of Death (2012, Napalm)

The skull:
There’s a kind of alchemical transformation happening in this scene. The skull was laid to rest in a casket he could barely fit into, but that’s incidental to what then occurred: the wood of the coffin disintegrated into negative space, a kind of black hole right here on Earth, and the bone of the skull transformed to wood. It all went down for reasons only a wizard of alchemy can explain. The beams seen emanating from the casket are the alchemical forces at work. In this bizarre phenomenon they are always invisible, like radio waves, but rendered visibile here for artistic purposes. It’s hard to tell by his expression if the skull is slap-happy about all of this or scared right down to the tits.

The music:
Heavily tattooed bands with short hair wearing baseball caps and metal t-shirts don’t necessarily sound like Pantera and other jump-metal superstars. But usually that’s the case. I’m already concerned — before even listening to this album — that I’m not very qualified to review thug/aggro/jump metal, mallcore and other associated lunacy. But let’s start with the t-shirts, because there’s some hope here: they like Slayer, Disfear and Trap Them. Once I finally got around to listening to this album I understand that they’re very good at what they’re doing. Maybe even excellent. I’m being totally objective here — it’s not my thing at all, but maybe it’s yours? This is modern metal that’s not quite thrash and not quite death and while it could appeal to the Pantera crowd, it doesn’t totally pander to that audience. If you can imagine Konkhra jamming with Desultory when both bands were deeply embedded in their groove phases, you’d have The Kandidate. If you’re a huge Hatesphere fan, it might cause you spasms of joy to know that Jacob Bredahl is singing here, but is anybody really a huge Hatesphere fan? Nah, not for me, but considering they also boast members of Thorium and Withering Surface, I guess I kinda have to admire their work in the Danish brown metal trenches all these years. [To the observant Big Dumb Skulls reader: you might note we reviewed Trap Them yesterday and Hatesphere is coming tomorrow, and that both are mentioned above. Total coincidence. Thank you for your patronage.]
— Friar Wagner

SKULL405

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Friar Wagner

TRAP THEM, Seance Prime (2007, Deathwish Inc.)

The skull:
We’ve looked at a ton of skulls in the past couple years, real and imagined, and rarely have we seen such humongous eye holes. They’re so big they look like the skull-world equivalent of bifocals, which then makes me think of Trailer Park Boys character Bubbles, which then renders this skull totally not fearsome anymore. And look at that boy gnawin’ on all those peppermint Chicklets. Dude’s got no worries.

The music:
This Seattle band have been hotly tipped by hipsters and real fans of extreme music alike since their first recordings began circulating in 2007. One of the most interesting things about them is that they feature Brian Izzi on guitar, who was in a band called December Wolves many moons ago. D. Wolves recorded one album of wanna-be Scandi-black metal and then two albums of feral, futuristic black/death/grind (1998’s Completely Dehumanized is an album I’d recommend for the curious and adventurous reader). It’s no wonder Izzi ended up in a band as ridiculously intense as Trap Them. While these guys lean too heavily on the crust/hardcore side of things for my personal tastes, it’s one of those things where you can only sit back and admire them for what they are. Because for the sort of vicious grind/crust they’re cranking out, it’s hard to imagine many bands doing it much better right now. Lots of respect to them for their music, because it sounds so goddamn real. It truly does sound frightening and truly does sound like it’s recorded by clincially insane serial killers and other highly volatile sociopaths. This 5-song, 16-minute EP is my first and so far only experience with Trap Them, but I can’t imagine their newer stuff sounds too much different.
— Friar Wagner