Monthly Archives: May 2014

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PAGAPU, Seven Days of Storm (2011, Pentagram)

The skull:
This image would be creepy as fuck if it weren’t for one little detail. I mean, the mouth of the skull being bionically extended by devices that look unpickable locks and a big thick blade…and all that dripping blood. Not to mention those fearsome tusk-like protusions from each side of the head. All of it pretty wicked. But that half-circle thingy that the top of the head is inserted into doesn’t quite look like the brace or head-belt that is likely its technical function. It just looks like a cute paper nurse hat from some tiny third world country lucky enough to have just enough of a budget to supply their nurses with hats at all. Not very evil!

The music:
A collection of demo recordings and various other odds and sods from this hopelessly obscure Peruvian one-man band. Most of this was recorded between 2003 and 2005, but the vibe is of another, earlier time, like Italy, Czech Republic or Greece circa 1989, with a foggy delivery of primitive death metal and embryonic traces of the buzzy early ’90s black metal sound. Exactly the sort of thing that would have fit perfectly on Wild Rags Records back in the day. I found myself digging this, as I’m occasionally a sucker for nuttiness of this sort. It reminds of the earliest emantations and rawest recordings of Rotting Christ, Varathron, Masters Hammer, Profanatica, Absu, Incantation, Von and Goatlord. A reviewer on Metal Archives says of one of the demos “good music, very poor vocals,” yet my impression is about the exact opposite: the vocals are much more interesting than the sometimes hamfisted and/or dull music. But sometimes the music is engaging enough, as with the suffocating bleakness of “Wanka Attack.” Worthwile despite its flaws, but only if you’re into some of that crazy-raw Wild Rags stuff and some of the other aforementioned noisemakers. (I had hoped to use the “Pagapoo-poo” insult, but no, I like this enough to refrain.)
— Friar Wagner

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GIGANTOR, The Damage is Done!  (2009, self-released)

The skull:
Now this is what we’re talking about:  the very epitome of the Big Dumb Skull. It is big. It is dumb. It is a skull. Nothing fancy needed or wanted. Elaborate skulls — leave the hall!!! Making it even dumber, and therefore more attractive to the Council of the Elders of the Skull, the BDS on this album cover has no direct link to the title of the work. Although, if we use just a few extra brain cells this morning, we understand that a human head stripped of flesh and all other vestiges of life communicates the universal truth that, indeed, death is not pretty, death is final, and, yes indeed, the damage is done. There’s no coming back. Nicely played, Gigantor. You got what you wanted: entry into the Hall of Skulls. Welcome.

The music:
Well, here we go, more rehash thrash, this time from Indonesia, and really, it’s a fairly scrappy affair that should be fiercer and tighter for the sort of thing they’re going for. They’re obviously attempting a melding of early breakneck stuff like Exciter and Anthrax and the more technical, riff-tastic workouts of the Bay Area approach. The energy might be there and the intent laudable, but the vocalist is like a weak Joey Belladonna imitation with very little character or aggression. The riffs are by-the-numbers, and while some of the leads are admirably cutthroat, there’s very little of interest backing them up. Forgettable re-thrash. The damage was done years ago by bands much better than this, and Gigantor’s sound is not as huge and formidable as their name suggests. They wear Venom, Exodus and Hirax shirts. You’ve seen and heard it all before, but then maybe that’s the idea. Four songs long, including the superbly titled “Squinting Bitch.”
— Friar Wagner

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DARKRISE, Unbeliever  (2006, Deadsun)

The skull:
Mrs. Skull:  Good morning, sunshine!
Mr. Skull: Good morning, my love.
Mrs. Skull: Coffee?
Mr. Skull: Oh, yes, please! [pause] I hardly remember getting home last night. [longer pause] How long did I sleep?

Mrs. Skull does not answer. She’s busy in the kitchen adding strychnine to her husband’s morning pick-me-up, which will put-him-down real good. She’s had about enough of his cheatin’ ways and intends to wipe that stupid-ass smile off his face and extinguish that gleam in his eye once and for all.

The music:
I wasn’t able to find the music of this, Darkrise’s second album, and their various sites only expose the public to the latest two albums (2009’s Built and 2013’s Realeyes). Diligent detective work leads me to believe that Unbeliever probably doesn’t sound too far away from their later stuff, which bears resemblance to a cross between Misery Index, Deeds of Flesh and Vader, but in an even more modern context — it’s all blasting drums, semi-technical precision riffs and everything-pushed-to-the-red production. The only recognizable difference between newer Darkrise and older Darkrise, on paper at least, is that the song titles of Unbeliever are like a PG-13 Aborted: “Stomachal Restitution,” “Narcofellation,” “Orgasm in Blood,” that sort of thing. The vocals on these later albums are mostly garden variety death, with a few higher pitched ones, as when Napalm Death does the same. I saw one picture of the band where they’re wearing Napalm Death, Exodus and Behemoth shirts, and that’s about says it all, along with the other bands mentioned above. These Swiss dudes are 100% capable of delivering what they have set out to deliver but there isn’t a shred of originality or individuality in any of it, which will forever keep them in the shadow of those who came before and did it better. Only indiscriminate death metal fans need apply. And there must be a ton of you out there, because it’s like these sorts of bands are growing on trees.
— Friar Wagner

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JESUS AIN’T IN POLAND, Freheit Macht Frei (2012, Grindpromotion)

The skull:
While inspecting the cloven skull before him on the autopsy table, the forensic pathologist said aloud, to no one but the imaginary medical procedural television director in his head, “This is without a doubt the worst sinus infection I have ever seen. No amount of pseudoephedrine was gonna clear this guy up. Hell of a way to go, if you ask me.” “Slain by snot,” he imagined the weary but wry protagonist answering, because even in his fantasies, the doctor was just a part of the supporting cast.

The music:
Maybe I’m going soft, or maybe I’ve just been beaten into submission by sheer numbers, but I’m starting to maybe develop a taste for grind, after these many years in the service of The Skull, listening to disc after disc of blasty Napalm Death worship. At the very least, it’s becoming less offputting to me, although I’m not sure I could cogently explain what makes one grind disc better than the next, except that the good ones tend not to sound like they were recorded on a boombox that crusty anarchists reclaimed from the dump. Jesus Ain’t In Poland is an incredibly stupid name, but they seem to have their shit together and their death-inflected grind mostly works for me. Their slower passages groove and afford the band the space to develop their riffs, and while their blasty bits are really not distinguishable from any other band working this style, they at least aren’t unlistenably obnoxious. Given the stylistic constraints of grind, I’m not sure it’s even possibly to impress with originality, and Jesus Ain’t In Poland certainly aren’t doing anything you haven’t heard before, but if you like grind (and aren’t in it for the shock value alone) then you’ll probably dig them.
— Friar Johnsen

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BLOOD ERECTION, Unceasing Bleeding  (2011, Casket Music)

The skull:
This band is named after a curious medical condition usually suffered only by sexual psychopaths, in which the sight of enormous amounts of blood produces an extraordinarily stiff and long-lasting erection. In the picture on the cover of Unceasing Bleeding, we see one particularly extreme case of blood erection, wherein the entire body became engorged, eventually stiffened then swelled until it all exploded in one ungodly, sanguine mess. We see only the skull here, underneath the pathologist’s plastic, as there was nothing left to salvage of the erection itself, or the rest of the body for that matter.

The music:
Unfortunately, the music of Greece’s Blood Erection isn’t even close to conjuring the gloriously gory imagery the band name and album cover have led us to firmly believe in. We get that they believe their music totally depicts such insanity, but you’d have to be a gullible metal novice to buy into this stuff. At best, Blood Erection sounds like an adequate knock-off of one of the more forgettable Cannibal Corpse albums. If words like “adequate,” “knock-off” and “forgettable Cannibal Corpse albums” describe the kind of death metal that makes you so hard your pecker could burst, this is your favorite new band! The rest of you move along…nothing to see, or hear, here.
— Friar Wagner

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NEOANDERTALS, Australopithecus (2009, self-released)

The skull:
Behold, the first Big Dumb Skull (artist’s rendering). While the charter of the Skullection requires skulls to be human, The Council is not so speciesist as to deny the fundamental humanity of this early hominid, and in fact, The Council generally holds that the difference in intelligence between this ancestor and modern man is negligible. And believe me, The Council would know!

The music:
Neoandertals are a two piece outfit who play something along the lines of “drum and bass grindcore.” At times it really is fairly reminiscent of Brutal Truth, minus the guitars, as pointless as that sounds, but generally it works. But, that’s Neondertals in their ordinary configuration. This release was a one-off jam session between main man Rain Pohlak and the band’s original drummer, Roland Seer. To call this metal would probably be a bit of a stretch, but historically, the band is metal enough that they have earned admission to the Skullection based on their past works. Australopithecus is also a moderately interesting release that might hold some appeal for math rock fans, in particular devotees of Hella, and I’d say the math rock/metal crossover is fairly wide. The playing here is tight, and far more interesting than 99% of metal bands could possibly manage to improvise over the course of a couple days. That said, this is a document of a weekend jam session, so a certain amount of musical meandering is to be expected, and if you can’t hang with that kind of literal musical experimentation, you’re definitely not going to enjoy the sounds on offer here.
— Friar Johnsen

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PLAGUE WIDOW, Plague Widow  (2012, Buriedinhell)

The skull:
Very “Darkthrone” in aesthetic, this cover pushes two buttons that, for this Friar, separate a killer skull cover from a dumb skull cover. I have a particular fascination with skulls that have an entanglement of roots underneath them, a fascination I didn’t even know I had until starting this ridiculous project. But there it is. Those roots are beautiful, seeming a “dust to dust” sort of commentary — “back to the earth from whence we came,” that sort of thing. The other button-pushing bit of coolness is the black rust dripping down the skull’s face, especially the streaks under the right eye which look like black tears. I’m totally into that too. (This blog is one of deep personal discovery for some of us!) With the geometical patterns framing the background and lending a cosmic sort of vibe, and that awesome if generic logo that’s nearly un-readable (but easy work for us logo codebreakers), you’ve got a cover that’s not big or dumb yet worthy of entrance into the hallowed Skullection.

The music:
“I don’t go in for this kind of grindcore meets black metal stuff,” an alternate-world, metal-loving Ron Swanson might have said. It’s a big deal in some corners, but it often comes off totally sterile and insincere. And totally fucking boring. Sacramento’s Plague Widow, however, are for real, and this nine-song, 15-minute EP wipes the floor of lesser hipster bands trying to do this same thing. Think about Insect Warfare playing Marduk covers, maybe. Plague Widow does everything right — the recording is powerful, punchy and crisp, their playing abilities are on the level of, say, Brutal Truth, and the multi-level approach reveals a mastery of everything from Disrupt-ish old school grind to blast-attack death metal to the dissonant string-scraping of a more technical black metal band. It’s all dark as hell, an imposing sound that cannot really be criticized, because the band achieves what they’re setting out to do, and they do it with total authority. They’re a very young band, too, so I suppose their tiny discography (this EP and a split) will grow immensely over the years. Ultimately, this is just plain impressive, whenever you’re in the mood for this kind of tormented calamity.
— Friar Wagner

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QUILLS, Quills (2006, Galy)

The skull:
What is that, there behind the skull? A bird? A moth, a Rorschach inkblot? There don’t seem to be a single high-resolution scan of this cover anywhere on the internet, so it’s a bit hard to say what’s happening here. Is the skull sporting long sabre teeth, or are those just tail feathers? Why are his eye sockes glowing? This is a highly mysterious and tediously boring skull at the same time. Any more time spent pondering the dumb enigma of Quills’s cranial mascot is sure to be time wasted.

The music:
I didn’t expect much from Quills until I noticed they were on Galy Records, a label in Montreal with more than a few excellent bands (Martyr, Unexpect, Horfixion, Shades of Dusk, etc). And sure enough, Quills are not the sludgy doom band I expected, but something of a weird mix of Mastodon-style technical stoner metal (if such a thing can be said to exist) and highly controlled grindcore. The vocals are basically hardcore yelling (and are quite bad), but although this entire EP is under 8 minutes, there is still some excellent riffing on display, and the playing manages to sound both tight and ragged at the same time. The nearest comparison I can make would be Sulaco, and that’s probably too obscure to be useful, but suffice it to say, Quills are really not bad at all. Then again, they’ve only produced about 13 minutes of music in nearly ten years, so holding out for their world-changing full length would represent a poor investment of one’s emotional resources.
— Friar Johnsen

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POISONBLACK, A Dead Heavy Day (2008, Century Media)

The skull:
Cool! A skull! Looks like it’s flying off a skycraper and streaming blood before it hits the ground. Rad! Best album cover ever!

The music:
Gothic metal! Neat! It’s even better than the final Sentenced album! This kicks! I downloaded it for free twice! I’m really into goth lately, I have these black beads and this really thick black eyeliner. Kids at school think I’m a freak, but I still play soccer and I’m running for student council this year. Can we go to Sonic for lunch? That place is total goth.

— Friar Wagner’s 13-year-old niece Matilda

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NEAL SMITH, Killsmith Two (2011, Kachina)

The skull:
This looks like a circus tent design, more specifically something lugged around by a traveling county fair troupe. You know, the kind of thing worked exclusively by chain-smoking ex-con rednecks  You can see this fearsome image (cough cough) on the tent with a barker at the entrance: “Ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, step right up! See the amazingriffic, terrifispendous Neal Smith, banging drums and singing songs of skulls and snakes to give you the shakes! The original rocker, straight from the pits of Hell, sent to thrill and chill, only one dollar bill! Oh, what a shriek! Step right this way folks, step right this way…”

The music:
Had Neal Smith not been part of the original Alice Cooper group, people would laugh this shit off as the lunk-headed cock-rock sleaze that it is. This is terrible. It’s easy to throw the “Spinal Tap” insult toward any bad band playing super-dumb heavy metal or hard rock, but in this case it’s a completely accurate comparison. “Strip Down,” “Legend of Viper Company,” “Evil Voodoo Moon”…every one of these songs is dreck. Check out the video for “Squeeze Like a Python.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO22Ttr_adM
See? Maybe Killsmith One is the masterpiece, I dunno.
— Friar Wagner