SKULL404

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Friar Wagner

KITTIE, I’ve Failed You (2011, E1 Music)

The skull:
Aesthetically this has a goth rock sort of feel, what with the roses (which are starting to dry up) and the feathers (which I’m assuming are not attached to the bird anymore, and also starting to dry up). And the skull, which is also something once living now dead. It’s a fairly well put together image, if on the generic/predictable side of skull covers. And that’s an interesting parallel to what this band is doing, musically.

The music:
I’ve successfully avoided listening to the music of Kittie since their inception. They’re one of those late ’90s bands that started out playing nu metal and then realized how crappy nu metal is and have since branched out to find their own style. It can be done, and sometimes a former nu metal band turns into a fantastic one; a couple post-nu units — Dredg and Deftones — count among the the greatest bands of recent times (the former having the good sense to drop the “nu” as early as their demo stage). Can Kittie do it? They claim influence from Pantera, Testament, Carcass, At the Gates, Acid Bath, Van Halen and Metallica, and you can hear all of that in I’ve Failed You. The album isn’t as horrible as I expected. The worst of it sounds like Sonic Syndicate fronted by Arch Enemy’s Angel Gossow, and that’s pretty awful. But there’s more variety than that would suggest. It’s like a survey of all popular heavy music since the grunge era: the Alice In Chains-esque “What Have I Done,” latter-day In Flames vibes with “We Are the Lamb,” and Trivium-esqe guitar work on “Empires (Part 2).” It’s performed well, showing them to be a highly competent group of gals, but there’s also a lack of authenticity, like they’re too-deliberately trying to please everyone, coming off with a passionless factory assembly line sort of feel. Some of it, like “Come Undone,” couldn’t be more generic in its psuedo-Gothenburg-isms, and I wouldn’t want to be caught dead listening to the emo-junk of “Never Come Home.” It’s not all bad, and I’m almost embarrassed to admit that, but when something like “Ugly” gets past its first few horrible minutes to lay out a seriously brooding atmosphere and some excellent guitar work, I have to get over myself and offer credit where it’s due. Overall, though, it panders way too much to the extreme metal mainstream — as such a thing exists — for me to feel much attachment to. And it’s not compelling me to return once I’ve done my duty of reviewing it for Big Dumb Skulls. But I will give Kittie a smidgen more credit than I might have about 90 minutes ago.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL403

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Friar Wagner

INSIDEAD, Chaos Elecdead (2011, Massacre)

The skull:
The very definition of “passionless art.” A skull. With fangs. Steely gray. Symmetrical. Flanked by wings, bones and bird skulls. (The Council have ruled that this does not violate the “no skulls” rule, as only human skulls are under consideration for Big Dumb Skulls.) Zero style, zero meaning. It looks a lot like 45 other covers of albums also released on Massacre Records in the last 5 years.

The music:
If there’s one thing I hate more than crappy skull covers like this one, it’s the “name game” so many bands play. For instance, Skinlab album title reVoltingRoom, or The Gathering’s if_then_else. Insidead do this too and prefer that their name be written thusly: InsIDeaD. Apparently this is some sort of cleverness having to do with the id part of the brain. And if there’s something I hate more than the name game, it’s silly metal portmanteaus, such as “Elecdead” in this album title (ie. “elected”) or that already-forgotten Swedish band Construcdead (“constructed”) and their genius album title Violadead (“violated”). There are others, but these are some of the ones that use the word “dead.” And if there’s one thing I hate more than these silly metal portmanteaus it’s crappy modern metal that sounds like a mixture of latter-day Sepultura and any day Pantera with tons of breakdowns and the obligatory “motherfucker!” yelp. The band describes their music as “a mixture of heavy, thrash and death core elements with a modern touch.” No wonder. Just wait till you hear the ballad “Time,” which sounds like Nickelback covering Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” with a heavy Greek accent. The latter they cannot help, but everything else is a voluntary exercise in generic modern metal, and Chaos Elecdead (it hurts just to type it) is possibly the most uninteresting and pointless album I’ve had to listen to during these skull excavations thus far.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL402

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Friar Wagner

EXTIRPATED, Decomposition & Decay (2011, Pathologically Explicit Recordings)

The skull:
While we’re pretty hard on computer artists ’round the world here at BDS — due to the many amateurish, hokey ideas they’re attempting to pass off as “art” — sometimes computer-generated cover art does okay. And I suppose this one qualifies as “okay.” You do get a sense of decomposition and decay, the red colors authentically recalling blood and that spine in the lower left corner doing well enough to convey “decay.” The skull itself, well, the guy is not having the best day and it doesn’t look like he’s ever going to recover from this fate. What we seem to be looking at is a human head being stripped of his flesh and blood real quick. Probably by pestilential winds or some shit. I cannot explain the gold dubloon stuck in his left eye, however. It’s all very perplexing.

The music:
Man, it feels like just yesterday I was bitching about the fact that there are three bands who have recently recorded under the name Extirpation. (It was actually two days ago.) Now we have Extirpated from Sweden. Lots of destroyin’ goin’ on under the auspices of fancy words ‘n’ such. But I don’t know if these young Swedes are as much musical geniuses as they are clever wordsmiths. Because this is garbage. Now, taking influence from Dying Fetus isn’t necessarily the worst place you can go for inspiration, but it’s probably not going to result in any originality whatsoever. (The band covers D.F.’s tender “Kill Your Mother, Rape Your Dog” here.) But really, this is exactly like 472 other bands I’ve heard that sound exactly like this. Redundancy incarnate. As with many of these sort of gore/porn death metal albums, it’s mercifully short (22 minutes), but after the lead-off tracks “Captain Syphillis” and “Clit Commander,” the unfunny joke doesn’t get any less unfunny. A total waste of time, and a total waste of okay cover art. “BREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! BREE BREE BRREEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
— Friar Wagner

SKULL401

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Friar Wagner

DOGBANE, Residual Alcatraz (2011, Heaven and Hell)

The skull:
Sometimes a skull can’t win. They don’t really have a say in the modeling jobs they get, at least, not at this level, and I’m pretty sure this guy hated every minute he had to pose for this winner of a portrait. He’s likely too macho to appreciate the Apocynum that surround him (they look like lilacs but are toxic, which I guess is why these dudes thought this was a great band name), but it was the tattooing of that lame band name on his forehead, in some sort of last-minute non-logo design, that really got him upset. Then he looked down at the album title and got so hot under the collar he lost his shit (ie. spontaneous combustion): “Residual Alcatraz? What the flying fuck is that supposed to mean???” He was given no answer, was paid his $20, and got outta there, hoping for a gig with Black Label Society next time around.

The music:
Dogbane’s music isn’t much better than their chintzy album cover art, lame band name and super-dumb album title. They sound like Demolition-era Judas Priest meets any given NWOBHM band’s mediocre “comeback” album (there are lots — take your pick)…but clunkier (look no further than the mess of second song, “Born to Die”). I love traditional heavy metal when it’s done right, which usually means the old stuff, before it got old enough to recycle. And it’s this sort of recycling that bands like Dogbane specialize in. I know: good songs are good songs, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be original if you’ve got ’em. Unfortunately Dogbane doesn’t got ’em.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL400

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Friar Wagner

EXTIRPATION, Tormentor Supreme Black Katharsis (2010, Infernal Chaos Productions)

The skull:
Marking our 400th skull in our run up to 666, we can only go with the most bad-ass looking skull in the Skullection. While the fanged lower jaw is fearsome, especially since it’s held in a kind of dish of larger fangs which seem to be ripping the mandible away from the maxilla, it’s the horns that do it. The three pairs of horns are humongous, all twisty and thick, but they don’t look like they’d be good for protection or attack — except for maybe repelling aggressors on the periphery. And, okay, I’m dancing around the true awesomeness here: the two largest horns each have lots of baby horns growing out of them. I’d like to think in 17 years they’ll be mature and as big as the main horns they’re sprouting from, and that this guy will look like a groteseque tangle of tentacled bone that you’d be tempted to shoot at point blank range and put out of his misery. (His neck problems alone would be too much to bear!) Or maybe they’re just little bony spurs or spikes which are dormant and will not get any bigger. I could talk about this skull’s amazing anatomy forever.

The music:
You know there are way, way too many metal bands out there when there are three bands in the 2000s who have recorded material under the name Extirpation. Or, to be less pessimistic: you know all the good band names are taken when there are three bands who have recorded material under the name Extirpation. So, what does this one-man death/black metal band have to offer besides an amazingly horny skull cover? Would you believe one-man death/black metal? It’s fast as hell, inhumanly so, and that’s why this guy uses a drum machine, because there’s no way a human being could play this, at least not this kind of sustained, unyielding flurry of blasts. And Extirpation really leans more on the death metal side. I can’t help but think of Mortician as this nonsensically-titled album flies by. The drum machine and vocals are dead-ringers for Mortician — I also hear some Von and Pillard-era Incantation in the vocals — but Mortician never utilized the kind of riffing technicality that exists here. It’s not Necrophagist or Obscura technical, but for sick, morbid, ugly, fast-as-shit death metal, the riffs are the only semi-sophisticated thing happening in an otherwise primitive landscape. I enjoy this to some degree, the same part of me that digs Nuclear Death, Rottrevore, Disembowelment and such, but Extirpation are ridiculously one-dimensional and it gets old quickly (like Mortician). You can bet we’re pleased as punch that the one man in this one-man band goes by the name of Skullcrushed.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL399

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Friar Johnsen

ANATOMY, For Those Whose Eyes Are Black (1992, demo)

The skull:
Staring at the MRI cross section on the screen, the doctor asks is residents, “Can anyone tell me what we’re looking at here.” “It’s big, sir.” “Yes, of course it’s big. What else?” “It appears to be dumb, as well.” “Yes, yes, we all know it’s dumb. Big and dumb: that’s obvious. What else?” The residents shift nervously, all of them withering under the doctor’s steely gaze. “Jesus, don’t they teach you kids anything anymore? This big dumb skull is also a cranky motherfucker with small teeth. Write this down, because I’m sure you’re going to see it again.”

The music:
Rough and tumble death metal that only aspires to the technical proficiency of Hellhammer. Sloppy, sludgy, cavernously reverberated, and thoroughly unimpressive, I would guess this stuff was nominally inspired by early Death and maybe some Scandinavian stuff, but at least in 1992, Anatomy were not up to the challenge. They continued to exist for at least another 10 years, and who knows if they got any better, but their early demos pretty squarely suck. But, just as I’ll buy pretty much any crappy thrash reissue, I’m sure there’s someone who just can’t get enough of this demo death junk, and maybe they should start scavenging the lowliest of Melbourne thrift stores looking for a copy of this.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL398

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Friar Wagner

NECROS CHRISTOS, Triune Impurity Rites (2007, Sepulchral Voice)

The skull:
Very serious stuff here. Very little to make jokes about. Other than the chicken foot. Maybe. Then I look at those nifty Necros Christos stoles. They look like priest stoles, you know, the shawls they wear to indicate their office or order. There can be no doubt what office you dwell in if you’re wearing a Necros Christos stole — the death metal office! I sure hope the dudes in the band wear them in concert. Moving on, we have candles, popular in occult-y photo shoots such as this. Mandatory, really. And then there’s the skull itself, as real as can be, and very much unbleached. They barely shook the dirt off before snapping this picture. Now, back to the chicken foot. You suppose the small bones forming a half circle in front of the skull belong to the same chicken as the foot? Do you suppose there was some sort of dinner involved here? Maybe a potluck of some sort?

The music:
I know some people who consider Necros Christos guitarist Mors Dalos Ra the greatest death metal vocalist ever. It’s difficult to dispute that. While he’s a bit lacking in depth, doing just one thing with his voice, what he does with it he does extremely well. He has this wet, gurgling, throaty, even phlegm-y quality, and it’s on the very low end of the scale without getting into porn-slam pig-grunt territory. Take David Vincent at his lowest, Mikko Aspa (Deathspell Omega) at his Mikko Aspa-est, Mikael Akerfeldt gargling tar, and the more deathly delivery of Immortal’s Abbath, and you kind of get in the area of this guy’s formidable approach. Musically it’s fairly straightforward death metal, not the fastest of them all, with a decidedly doom-drenched layer. There are some exquisitely morbid guitar lines throughout, and the drumming ranges from primitively simple to acrobatically complex. The production quality is perfect for the material — natural and earthy, but hardly lacking in otherworldly vibe. Sometimes it all gets rather involved — not quite symphonic but certainly stacked with a variety of complementary melodies and rhythms that create a mad hypnotic swirl, as in the album’s longest song, “Va Koram Do Rex Satan.” Other times the death-pummel absolutely crushes — straightforward, lurching, throbbing chunks of fat guitar tones and eyes-rolling-back-in-the-head sorta stuff. Overall things are kept low and bloated, a bit of a Morbid Angel influence, an aesthetic vibe that feels like various Greek occult death/black bands, and a creepy melodic sensibility to the riffs that keeps things very, very, very dark. There’s no way you can call this anything other than “excellent,” whether it turns you into a huge N.C. fan or not. Better than 99% of death metal bands that have emerged since the burnout of the mid ’90s.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL397

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Friar Johnsen

WIECZNOŚĆ, The Insight Kingdom (2010, self-released)

The skull:
Sometimes the best skulls are the worst, you know? This is a tastefully rendered watercolor skull that doesn’t immediately remind me of another cover, but it’s also so fucking boring that my fingers are falling asleep as I type this. What joke is to be made here? My kingdom for an insight! That’s about all I’ve got, and that was pretty lame. I can imagine a million small changes that would immediately elevate this skull to true ridiculousness. He could be smoking a pipe, for instance. Or wearing a propeller beanie. Or one of his teeth could have an emerald embedded in it. The options are limitless. I’m going to have to assume that the artist just ran out of time. He was totally ready to turn this into a real work of art when the band came bursting into his studio to demand the final art, because they needed to print up a dozen CDRs for their show that night, and also they really wanted to get the pic up on Myspace. If only they had been more patient!

The music:
I was expecting some very harsh black metal, but this is… not that. I guess you could call it progressive death metal, maybe? It does have some black metal influences, but they’re more like someone’s imagined ideas of what a Chuck Schuldiner-led black metal band sound like. In their slower moments (which are never really slow, but at least they’re not blasting fast), Wieczność come up with some very cool melodic riffs in the vein of early Dark Suns or something like that. Even when they speed up, the guitar work remains fairly clever, although it often gets lost in the programmed blasting. The drum machine can be very distracting, in fact. The samples are good sounding, for the most part, so it’s not that they sound overly fake. It’s just that sometimes the drum parts don’t seem to go with the guitar parts at all. They feel like mistakes. Maybe this is just the result of two guitarists programming the drums, although for the most part, the beats makes sense. I don’t know. It’s a weird thing. Anyway, Wieczność, when they’re good, are very good, but they often lose control of themselves, and in the end I’m not even entirely sure what they were trying to accomplish. This is the band’s sole release, but they’re allegedly still around, so maybe they’re just taking their time to really get their ducks in a row. If they do release something else, I’d expect it to be fairly good, so here’s hoping.
— Friar Johnsen