Monthly Archives: April 2014

SKULL465

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AGATHOCLES,Trail of Despair(2011, Selfmadegod)

The skull:
Heavy metal cover art is rarely allegorical, but I think a close reading of this piece is illustrative. You see, the syringe represents the MMR vaccination, and the skull represents autism, and the four logos represent what the fuck is wrong with you fucking people who don’t vaccinate your fucking children? I don’t care if Jesus and Jenny McCarthy came to you in a dream; if you don’t vaccinate your kids you deserve to be punched hard in the crotch by carnies. Pretty deep stuff, really.

The music:
For as long as I’ve known about Agathocles, and that’s been nearly as long as they’ve been releasing music, I’ve wanted desperately to like them, because their name is immensely cool. I still don’t know who or what “Agathocles” is, but I still love the sound of it. But, sadly, it has never been possible for me to get into this band, because they are terrible. They were terrible 20 years ago, and they haven’t gotten better. They’re the kind of band that releases 27 split 7″s a year, and every song sounds like the sloppy, first-pass rehearsal room demo of a song Napalm Death eventually ditched for being too shitty. Actually, I’m kidding. They only released 14 splits in 2011. This particular platter is backed by tracks from Nuns Laughter, another BDS alumnus, and both sides together come in under 10 minutes, so at least my suffering was short (especially since I didn’t bother listening to the Nunslaughter, although they were almost certainly better than the Agathocles ones.) Someday I’d like to meet someone who listens to this sort of thing, so I could try to get to the bottom of the phenomenon. People like all manner of awful music for perfectly valid (if usually nonmusical) reasons, and I’m sure there’s a compelling argument to be made for the ongoing existence of this band, but I sure as hell can’t fathom it on my own.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL464

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NIHILIST, Call Down the Thunder  (2006, self-released)

The skull:
A skull out of time. While this looks every shade of 1984, it’s actually an eyesore released in the modern age. Wonders never cease. And it’s another in the skull family of logo-eaters, something we’ve seen and been amused by a couple times already. The eyepatch and the hair are hilariously self-explanatory. (Especially the hair…he’s got the mane of a lion.) This skull’s here to rock! And to apparently call down the thunder. We see the lightning, so the thunder can’t be far behind. I’m going to guess this sounds exactly like Wild Dogs.

The music:
Are there really several young kids who love metal, meet up and form a band together who haven’t ever heard of the Swedish death metal band that has the rightful claim to the Nihlist name? Even if that name hasn’t been in use since the band changed their name to Entombed in 1989, you’d think anyone respectful of the genre’s history would leave the name alone. Or maybe they just don’t care? Anyway, what’s in a name? This Nihilist are from California and they play goofy, hard-rocking metal with a speedy element that isn’t quite thrash but gets close. Lots of dopey vocal phrasing that apes equally dopey riffs. This is their downfall, because otherwise its solid, serviceable metal, even if it’s nothing you’d cross the street to obtain. Occasionally you’ll hear a passage the reaches metal glory, as in “The Assault.” You have to respect their energy, and their tenacity (lots of self-releases over ten years’ time), but they’re generally useless unless you’ve just been introduced to heavy metal, and then I suppose they’d sound fairly fresh. They do a decent but pointless cover of Judas Priest’s “Freewhell Burning,” which provides a perfect example of what their originals attempt to achieve. Judging from the sound of the band plus the cover artwork, I’ll give them another few points for their total lack of irony; Nihilist (CA) seems to be a completely earnest, from-the-heart sort of endeavor. They probably don’t even have beards. Good on ’em for all that.
— Friar Wagner

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NIHILIST, demo 1990 (1990, demo)

The skull:
Sometimes, two crossbones are not enough. In fact, sometimes, enough is never enough, as you can see here. It looks like whenever the artist was about to be finished, he decided to add something else, be it a bandana, some pirate runes, a stick of dynamite (?), or whatever that squiggly shit in the lower left is. It more or less works, but only because all the junk is added to the periphery of this fine piratical skull. He does seem to have something in his mouth, but at this low resolution, I’m having trouble making it out. Is it a clock? Is it an eyeball? Only Nihilist knows, and they just don’t care enough to make shit clear. Say what you will about the tenets of NSBM, but at least it’s an ethos.

The music:
If you couldn’t already tell from the logo, this is not the Swedish Nihilist, the band that spawned both Entombed and Unleashed. Instead, this is a thrash band from Georgia (the U.S. state, not the country!) I couldn’t locate this actual demo, but I was able to sample some other Nihilist tunes, and I must say, they seem to have been a pretty good band. They were fairly groovy for thrash, reminding me a little of what White Zombie would do, musically, on their lone good disc, La Sexorcisto, even if Nihilist aren’t animated by the same campy fun. This demo was even recorded by Scott Burns, so it probably sounded great. For a demo-level band, Nihilist were incredibly polished and impeccably tight, and while plenty of good bands somehow slipped through the cracks back in the golden days, I’m definitely surprised that no one has given this band the deluxe reissue treatment. This stuff is screaming for a Stormspell or Divebomb compilation to collect all of their demos. Get on it, intrepid reissuers!
— Friar Johnsen

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CREEPER, War Machine  (2010, self-released)

The skull:
It’s the pointless skull I feel most sorry for. At least the ones getting smacked over the head with skateboards or balancing warheads on their foreheads are serving some sort of purpose. Take this guy, whose grim visage is slapped onto the album cover as a place-holder until the war machine itself arrives. He can’t possibly be the actual war machine. He may look evil, but he would be rather ineffective in battle, lacking limbs with which to drive a tank or fire a gun, or even press a button on a missile launcher. No, this skull is being used, and he’ll be tossed away as soon as the star of the show arrives, perhaps even blasted away by the war machine he’s standing in for. War is hell, and this skull has been condemned to be forgotten.

The music:
It’s fortunate that a lot of EPs have been coming my way lately here at Big Dumb Skulls, especially since so many have been so miserably below average. Creeper is perhaps the most unappealing band I’ve heard in a while. I will dole out one point for the David Wayne-esque shrieks in “Screamin’ Demon,” but ultimately this is entirely forgettable. These Texans play your standard brand of American groove/aggro metal, the kind of thing a person would like if their CD collection began with Pantera, ended with Metallica, and featured only Soulfly and Five Finger Death Punch in the middle. And that’s exactly how their 17 CDs would be displayed on the rack they made in wood shop, not having yet figured out the fine art of alphabetization.
— Friar Wagner

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WEST WALL, Conquest or Death (2009, self-released)

The skull:
Tank treads, barbed wire, and two kinds of grenades. Right here are the makin’s for a very nice poster for that weird guy at the flea market who sells WWI memorabilia and smells like cancer. The skull itself displays a resplendent brow, the sort of massive braincase you’d expect to house the hyper-intelligent brain of an ubermensch. But, isn’t it always the way that Poindexters like this are constantly losing shit, like their glasses or their lower jaws? This is probably why Germany lost the war.

The music:
If West Wall aren’t a neo-Nazi band, they’re as close as you can come without out and out heiling Hitler or including the word “Aryan” in your bandname. You could, if you were so inclined to delude yourself, simply read West Wall’s lyrics as being of a piece with, say, Hail of Bullets or Sabaton or any other band that sings about World War II. You could get away with this, even, if you didn’t know that members of West Wall were active in the skinhead scene, or you never saw a photo of the band fully costumed in totenkopf shirts, etc. You might, in that case, just think they were a run of the mill death metal band with a lot of songs about tanks. Panzer tanks. But, now you know, and if you can still listen to West Wall (named after the Siegfried Line) without feeling like a total shitheel, well, good for you, I guess.
— Friar Johnsen

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RAZORMAZE, Miseries  (2010, self-released)

The skull:
At first glance this cover looks absolutely KILLER. Look a little closer and you may find those five heads annoying, you might judge that the third eye doesn’t like quite right when it’s vertical (and apparently cut out of a J.C. Penney catalog), and you may feel that the wings on each side of the skull’s maxilla are incredibly stupid. I don’t feel any of those things. I already got this bitch tattooed on my back. Nah, I kid. I’m sorta bummed, being seduced at first by the orange color, which looks like the skull is sporting Janis Joplin-esque locks, which complements the sea-blue color of the orb behind him. It looked like a skull cover I could actually get behind and yes, even tattooed on my back, but now, no…I cannot look at this thing any longer.

The music:
Musically you’re gonna get a few great riffs here amidst some not-so-hot ones on this three-song EP. There’s a decent amount of melody here, and lots of energy too. These Boston kids play with commendable earnestness…possibly too much, as “Karma In/Karma Out” rocks out so hard that it sounds as much cock-rock as it does thrash metal. Yet…yet…the solo work in the middle is absolutely superb. The element I find annoying, and ruinous to an otherwise not-bad band, are the snottily-delivered vocals. They can be described as a cross between Joey Belladonna, Act III-era Mark Osegueda and Kurt Brecht, but much worse than that sounds. The gang vocals are lame too. But, from an objective standpoint, this is high-energy, capably-delivered, brightly-colored thrash befitting of the album cover. Mostly for those who don’t care a thing about innovation or originality, but they do have genuine elements of promise, especially guitarist Alex Citrone.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL459

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CAULDRON BLACK RAM, Stalagmire (2014, 20 Buck Spin)

The skull:
Let this be a lesson to sleepy skulls everywhere: no matter how tired you are, DO NOT lie down for a nap in a drippy limestone cave. You drift off for a couple decades of well-deserved rest and when you wake up, you’re fucking fossilized to the ground, with nothing to do but wait for some asshat paleontologist to show up and dig you out. And if one of your skull buddies finds you while you’re sleeping, you can be sure when you wake up there’ll be a dick drawn on your dome, in Sharpie no less. You’ll never live that shit down.

The music:
When I started spinning this disc, I was immediately reminded of Meathook Seed’s excellent, underrated debut, Embedded, which was built on weird, slinky riffs, jarring transitions, and a sort of willful inexactitude. No one ever made another album like Embedded, and I’m not saying that Cauldron Black Ram finally have. Nor am I suggesting that Cauldron Black Ram were influenced at all by that one odd Mitch Harris side project, but they have clearly arrived at a similarly strange notion of death metal (minus the keyboards and drum machine, though). Without sounding deliberately old fashioned, Cauldron Black Ram have made an album that evokes the spirit and dare I say curiosity that used to animate at least some small sliver of the death metal scene. Unquantized, only as tight as you can get from rehearsal, and defiantly mid-gain, Stalagmire is death metal freed from the horse-race demands of brutality, speed, and technicality that have nearly ruined the genre in the last decade. If it’s not as good as 2014’s leading contender for death metal album of the year, Morbus Chron’s Sweven, there’s also no shame in that second place finish. Cauldron Black Ram have been around forever, but I’d never heard them before now, and for sure I’ll be working my way backwards to determine when it was they got so good.
— Friar Johnsen

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CAN OF WORMS, Can of Worms  (2011, self-released EP)

The skull:
What is this mess? Maybe if you stare at the cover just right, not too intensely nor too lazily, you’ll see the image of a can of worms appear, or perhaps an actual depiction of a tricky situation which requires much effort to resolve. Like one of those random dot autostereograms. Yet I keep staring and all I see is an ugly, skinny, indistinct skull hovering through what appears to be Birmingham. Or maybe it’s Detroit.

The music:
French death/thrash, according to Metal Archives. And it’s weird, the last album I voluntarily listened to was Sepultura’s Arise, and then this band comes crashing into my transom with the exact same intent. And the skill level is nearly as high, but, no dice…Sepultura did it first and did it better. Memorability and song writing acumen are lagging far behind prime Sepultura as well. Broken record time: it’s been done before, in many different derivations. Even if Can of Worms are extremely good at what they’re doing, and I’ll admit that they are, there’s nothing here you can’t live without. Back to Arise it is then.
— Friar Wagner

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SEVERE DISGRACE, Disciples of Aggression (2011, demo)

The skull:
It may look like that rat is scampering over the skull, but no, that’s not what’s happening. He’s climbing on top of the skull, mounting it, if you will, to perform a lascivious deed. In other words, this filthy rat is about to get his skull fuck on. I realize this is shocking, that you probably haven’t seen anything like this before, but if you ever find yourself on business in the European microstate where The Council gathers, you’ll encounter this sort of thing on the pay-per-view channels in basically every hotel. The heart wants what it wants; don’t judge.

The music:
It’s rethrash, and it’s Brazilian, which means it basically sounds German, although these days, only Swedes make totally German-sounding thrash anymore. Everyone else mixes in at least a little Bay Area spice, and for Severe Disgrace, that mixing generally happens in the intros and breakdowns (or “mosh parts” as I called them in my teens.) The verse and chorus will be pure Kreator worship, and then all of a sudden, we’re plunged balls deep into a mediocre Exodus song. It can be a little confusing, but really, it’s not all that bad. One thing I like about Severe Disgrace is that they appear to be operating entirely without a sense of irony, which in these benighted days of pizza thrash is really a blessing. This is thrash that sounds angry and disaffected, which is really the best kind of thrash. These aren’t the best songs, but they’re played well enough and with the right kind of vibe, and when they do hit on something special, like the genuinely sinister bridge of “Evil Possessed,” it almost makes me think there’s room enough in this world for another thrash band.
— Friar Johnsen

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SEPTIC MIND, Истинный Зов (2011, Solitude Productions)

The skull:
Maybe because I’ve been craving Thai noodles lately, those flat and wide ones, I imagined this skull in a bed of said noodles. My stomach growled at the very thought, even if I am (mostly) vegetarian. I’d work around the skull just to get to those chewy strands of brown sauce-soaked glory. But alas, a closer look reveals this nest is made of much-less-edible wicker strands. The skull looks remarkably aged, and recently unearthed, judging from his dirty, scarred noggin. Whatever his age, it looks like the poor guy has been through hell. I say wrap him in some swaddling clothes and lie him in a manger. A manger of Pad See Ew. He deserves much more than a wicker nest.

The music:
After two albums, this Russian funeral doom band are already kaput. Their music is drawn-out slowness (surprise surprise!) with a decidedly hypnotic, dream-like feel, even more so than the usual funeral doom band. While I am no authority on this subgenre of a subgenre, Septic Mind are as intolerably boring as any other band in this genre, although their mystical characteristics — ambient sounds that trail through the entirety of each of the three compositions, and the drowsy, chiming, shoegaze-esque guitar tones — allow me to appreciate this album just a little bit. While I consider myself a fairly patient listener, it was difficult to not become anxious for the songs to reach their terminus long before they actually did. The songs do develop, and slowly, of course, but the payoff is never quite satisfying enough. Finally, as with so much of this stuff, the vocals slum it while the music aspires to something higher and more enlightened. Relatively interesting as funeral doom goes, while as instantly forgettable as it goes too. One (listen) and done.
— Friar Wagner