Monthly Archives: October 2014

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MALICIOUS DAMAGE, Malicious Damage (1989, demo)

The skull:
How many seconds do you think it took them to come up with this one?

The music:
I was hoping for some delicious jammage from this four-song, 11-minute tape. I mean, death/thrash metal from Florida circa 1989? I’m in. What we get is some fairly standard thrash, no more, no less. It’s fast, that’s for sure, but it was already getting a bit late for new thrash bands to enter the scene, bust down the door and impress. Pretty sure this demo got a handful of okay reviews in the ‘zines despite a mostly “ho hum” reception from the greater metal world. I was around then, totally immersed in metal of all kinds, reading shitloads of ‘zines, and I don’t remember any sort of buzz on Malicious Damage. The vocalist sneers like a Zetro-meets-Killian madman, and it’s both annoying and impressive at the exact same time. You have to credit his ferocity. Musically it recalls those vocalists’ bands, merging the off-kilter madness of early Exodus with the more disciplined frenzy of Vio-lence. Unfortunately it’s more Acrophet than Gammacide, if you know what I mean. I have to give special mention to the guitar sound, which is a warped, overdriven, vacuum-cleaner kinda thing at its best (opener “Can’t Escape”). Weirdly, it sounds like the demo was recorded in separate sessions, as there’s a much cleaner guitar sound by the time you get to third song, “Killing Season.” Or maybe you’re just used to it by then. Inexplicably, the band returned in 2005 with an EP proceeded to put three self-released albums out there that, I’m going to imagine, were received with only lukewarm enthusiasm. Helluva demo cover though, yeah!
— Friar Wagner

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ATTAXE, Displaced (1989, demo)

The skull:
It’s the sleepy eye that makes this cover, as if the skull were thinking to himself, “I got out of bed for this?” Attaxe’s demo before this one also features a less big, but possibly more stupid stull, and I like to think that this guy was the model for that as well. He moved out to California to star in horror movies, but the only work he could find besides waiting tables was appearing on three track cassettes from bands who would never amount to much. It’s no wonder he wasn’t able to muster any more enthusiasm, especially when for this shoot he had a big-ass logo dropped on his head, and those swords were sharp! If the rent hadn’t been due in a couple days, he might not have showed up, but as it was, he didn’t have much choice.

The music:
Attaxe were yet another thrash band who were born too late; though their demos were pretty good, they were only just hitting their stride when the metal scene collapsed in the early 90s. This 1989 demo is a nice piece of Bay Area-style thrash (although Attaxe were from Southern California) that reminds me of a lesser Vio-lence. Though well played and unusually well produced for a demo, Displaced is not exactly brimming with original ideas, and Tim Carson’s unnuanced, bellowing vocals (which are clearly modeled after Chuck Billy’s) sell the music a bit short. Still, there’s a lot more going on here than you’ll hear from most new thrash bands, and while (to my knowledge) the Attaxe discography has never been reissued, the band maintains a nice historical webpage where you can hear most, if not all, of their recorded output. If you’re seriously into thrash, you’re sure to get something out of the experience of digging through their archives (and as they went through a lot of singers, some of the demos feature better vocals than the ones here), but if your relationship with thrash is more casual, then it’s unlikely that Attaxe is going to make you fall in love with the genre at last.
— Friar Johnsen

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LEPROUS, Coal (2013, Inside Out)

The skull:
As kids, we all learn that diamonds are compressed coal, although as it turns out, that’s not true at all, at least in the case of most diamonds. Probably a long time ago, the lesson was simply that diamonds are made of the same stuff as coal (they’re just carbon, after all), but over time, overeager and undercurious elementary school teachers probably confused the relationship. This cover is an attempt to extrapolate the degeneration of this misinformation into the far future, when kids the world over will learn that diamonds are made when a crystal skull chews up coal and vomits out gems. Children who ask how the skull is animated can expect one of two answers. The smarter dumb teachers will explain that the skull is only a metaphor for metamorphic processes. The dumber dumb teachers will say “Jesus.”

The music:
Leprous’s 2011 full-length, Bilateral is one of the greatest prog metal albums of all time, and a shot in the arm of a moribund scene that has primarily calcified into third generation Dream Theater knockoffs in a race to sound the most like a power metal band. Through clearly indebted to the eclecticism of early Pain of Salvation, Bilateral is its own beast, a frantic, technical, sometimes bewildering brew of everything great in prog metal. It’s an album so good that to attempt to top it on its own terms would be a folly, and it seems that Leprous realized as much, because Coal strikes off in entirely new directions while still sounding somehow of a piece with the band’s earlier work. Mostly abandoning the frenetic riffery of Bilateral (and to a lesser extent, Tall Poppy Syndrome), Coal instead ventures to progress vocally, and indeed the entire album, more or less, rests on the shoulders of keyboardist and singer Einer Solberg, whose voice started off pretty great and has evolved into something close to a wonder of the metal world. There are long acapella sections, intricate counterpunctual melodies, and deep explorations of vocal ideas. Obviously heavy metal has a long traditional of athletic vocal performances, but I can’t offhand think of another prog metal band who have invested so much energy in the cultivation of a unique approach to vocals. From the very first track, it’s clear that Leprous are working at something new. Not every fan of the band was pleased by this. Many complained that there are too many “oohs” and “aahs” and other weird vocalizations, and indeed there are many, so many that I think the band must have had provocation in mind when they went down this path. But I for one find the subtle and intricate permutations of Solberg’s melodic choices to be almost trance-inducing. At the very least, I find the vocals sufficiently engaging that I don’t miss the crazy guitarwork of albums past in the least, and in fact the deep, Tool-inspired grooves and novel textures conjured by guitarists Tor Oddmund Suhrke and Øystein Landsverk are exactly the right bed for Solberg’s singing. The album’s single track, “The Cloak,” for instance, is more or less a four minute expansion of a single vocal hook, but it’s a hook so powerful that it could easily support another four minutes, no solos of wanking needed. Coal is not for everyone, nor even for a large part of the historical audience for prog metal, whose taste and spirit of adventure have largely withered along with the ambitions of most of the scene’s onetime frontrunners. It’s time to ditch Dream Theater for good and follow bands like Leprous to hear the future of prog metal.
— Friar Johnsen

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ASH BORER, Ash Borer (2011, Psychic Violence)

The skull:
All kinds of “hipster alert” sirens going off right now in my office. First, the occult-looking skull, the design of which could be a Death in June or Brighter Death Now image, co-opted by some California atmospheric black metal band. And the fact that it’s shaped like a cassette. And, indeed, it was released on cassette. My concerns far outweigh any impact the actual skull is having right now. But what about him? This guy looks glassy and carbon-black, and the storm a-ragin’ behind him is nothing like the storm in my mind, knowing I might be having to grapple with yet another bearded clan of hipsters who I could never, ever relate to. Let’s see about that…

The music:
Three songs, nearly 40 minutes. Okay, you can already see where this is going. Think Krallice. I’m thinking Krallice, anyway. Which is not the worst thing to think, if I’m honest with myself. The opening track, “In the Midst of Life, We are in Death,” has an ominous dose o’ doom running through its center. Then blazing black metal busts down the gates of doom and lets rip. It’s fine. It’s even fairly authentic. But it gets real dull, real fast. And ditto on the other two tracks. Scathing, blazing, full-tilt madness when it’s not moving extremely slowly, this is competent and boring. It feels like background music much of the time. And black metal of any kind should never feel like background music. In fact, I don’t even believe in background music. So I guess I don’t believe in Ash Borer, even though I know they exist.
— Friar Wagner

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BLACK JESUS, Black Jesus Saves (2010, demo)

The skull:
Just like Columbus Day – which it is on the day I write this – we all pretty much know Jesus wasn’t white, but we still think of him as a white dude anyway. Same thing with Columbus…we all know the story, but we’ll take the day off. Well, “we” as in bankers and postal workers — the rest of us are Viking-lovers patiently awaiting our holiday. I digress. The idea of a black Jesus, or a dark-skinned Jesus, is not only historically appropriate, but it makes for some great Blaxploitation b-movie imagery, don’t it? And this skull…this skull is fly. It’s not the actual skull of (black) Jesus, but he’s right on nonetheless. He foxy. Betchya sweet ass. He’s tight, together and mean. Chicks…chumps…he uses ‘em all. Indeed, we believe this may be the skull of Willie Dynamite, but we’ll get back to you. Our forensics expert need a little more time on that.

The music:
These eight songs and nearly nineteen minutes of crudely recorded noise sounds like a rawer, more savage Diskord without the surreal, hallucinatory quality. With its militantly basics-only approach, it also has a Nunslaughter vibe. Every song rips ass, short and sweet, and if you didn’t think a band was out there that combined Diskord and Nunslaughter, well, think again. Add some Autopsy and Repulsion-ish flavors, and you pretty much get where this is going. There’s even a hint of ingenuity in a song like “The Devouring” with its odd dissonant guitar melodies and the tractors-tumbling-down-a-hill calamity of the whole thing. At 3:39, it’s the epic of the demo. I enjoyed this probably more than I should have.
— Friar Wagner

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GRIMLAIR, Au Commencement De L’Ombre (2009, Self Mutilation Services)

The skull:
This faded, ghoulish fellow looks at first glance to be wearing some kind of hood or cowl, but in fact it’s a mortarboard, worn insouciantly far back on his dome. If that doesn’t make any sense, perhaps you didn’t realize that the proper English title of this release should be “At the Commencement of the Hombre,” but due to some confusion as to how to operate Google Translate, it came out (in French) as The Beginning of Shadow. It’s a mistake anyone could have made.

The music:
You’d never guess that this is one-man bedroom black metal, would you? Oh, you would? What gave it away? Oh, right. Everything. This is raw and awful, but I think it’s supposed to sound raw and awful. It’s not that Cadavre (the one-man) is totally incompetent, it’s just that he loves terrible music, and is very good at recreating the shit he likes. I’ll give him a couple extra points, even, for playing real drums, even if it kinda sounds like he’s playing them at the same time as the guitars, the way it used to work in one-man bands. Anyway, if you like shitty, sloppy, drenched-in-verb black metal, then maybe you’ll like this. I mean, who knows? People with rotten taste are hard to predict.
— Friar Johnsen

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MORPHINIST, Believer (Transcendent Bringer of Light) (2013, demo)

The skull:
Father, mother and son alike had no idea what the fuck happened. They walked into Applebee’s for their regular Monday night dinner treat, and, as usual, dad asked for a placemat (and crayons) so the kid wouldn’t get bored waiting for the food to arrive. Then this creepy goth kid comes over and slaps this down on the table. The crayons would not write on its weird parchment-like surface, and the maze little Dylan was supposed to navigate was one of dark impossibility. Confounded and frustrated, he didn’t so much cry as scream a nightmarish, possessed howl…the futility of the maze and the skull beckoning inside it proved way too much for this seven-year-old who hadn’t yet gotten over his fear of Barney the Dinosaur. It’s too bad they’d never go to an Applebee’s again — everyone in the family really liked the apps, especially the grilled chicken wonton tacos.

The music:
From the demo title, both the main and the parenthetical part, you might think this is Christian metal of some kind. But then Morphinist released another demo in 2013 called Disbeliever (Descent Into Endless Darkness), so I guess they’re playing on both sides of the philosophical stream. And it’s not they, but he: Morphinist is a one-man show outta Hamburg – and the dude has been in 10 other bands I swear on a stack of skulls you’ve never heard of before. So, what about the music itself? For one-man black metal, the sound is reasonably full and the music is delivered with above-average ability. When the guitars start getting cosmic, chiming out blurry meteor showers on the higher frets, it’s entrancing. But the hypnosis doesn’t last, and ultimately these two long songs (both 14+ minutes) become so excruciatingly boring that it leads to a kind of impatient aggravation. The main problems isn’t that that the parts are bad (lots of them are legitimately good, no doubt) but it has an empty feeling. Maybe that’s what he’s going for, but really, this is instrumental metal that fails where so much other instrumental metal fails: it is glaringly instrumental. A good instrumental metal band should never let you feel like you’re missing something (vocals)… their music should capture the interest wholly and totally so that you don’t even realize a singer is missing. Canvas Solaris was really good at that. Morphinist, however, is not…yet, man, there are some killer passages in first song “Sleep for the Sleepless, Vanquish Your Cage of Flesh,” which reminds of Morbus Chron’s Sweven both musically and in the images its title conjures. There are some fine parts in the second song too (another long title), but you just wish for something else to fill in the gaps here…squishy Moog synth lines…Arcturus-ish guitar leads…or vocals. Later Morphinist (like, the three albums he released in 2014) features some vocals, so maybe I’ll check that out someday.
— Friar Wagner

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CHAINSAW, Permanent Menace (2011, Metalizer)

The skull:
This skull is so fucking tough his lower jaw is a god damned chainsaw! Sure, the background is ghastly and the Photoshop work is abysmal (the horns and the handle of the saw seem to occupy the same space, for instance) but I’m gonna let that all slide, because this artist wasn’t ‘shopping in a snake or some fire – he was ‘shopping in a motherfucking chainsaw. It’s utterly ridiculous, and also implausibly original, as we’ve never seen anything like this here at Skull HQ, which is a higher and higher bar to clear every day. Well played, Chainsaw art dude. Well played.

The music:
I expected bad Russian rethrash, but this is in fact some proper oldschool German thrash. Chainsaw were active in the 80s and released one full length before disbanding, but this disc is apparently an unreleased second album. Maybe these were just demos, but they sound good enough to have been final recordings for an album meant to come out in 1989, although I suspect the source for this was an old cassette of a rough mix or something, as the quality from track to track is not totally consistent. The music is fast and tight, sounding like a cross between Blackfire-era Sodom and Testament, which is a combination I wouldn’t have imagined before but works quite well. It’s neither technical nor barbaric, but something in between, and there’s no denying this was made in the 80s. I like it! This is one of the better lost thrash albums I’ve heard, and it makes me curious about the band’s earlier work, which features awesome cover art of a totally different sort, the kind of drawing that would make Vortex proud.
— Friar Johnsen

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LOBOTOMIA, Lobotomia (1986, New Face)

The skull:
This might just be the most spike-ridden skull in the entire Skullection. This dude was in for a world of hurt when he auditioned for this job. Not only did the artist impale the bastard with long needle-like spikes so he could draw his tortured likeness, he stuck all the drumsticks from his KFC bucket into various orifices of the skull. And where there wasn’t an orifice, the artist made one. And only then did he draw this piece of art. As for the skull, this was low pay for high pain, and he’ll never do this shit again. Dude went home shaken to the core, warning his skull palls to “never, ever, ever apply for that Lobotomia job.” It’s advice any skull would do well to heed.

The music:
In Sao Paulo circa 1986, any band going for a mesh of thrash and speed metal and hardcore could only come out sounding like this…which is to say they sound like early Ratos de Parao. It’s bouncy stuff, especially with that bass guitar sounding like it came off some early Metal Blade album:  fat and prominent, despite being kinda low-fi. The music on the whole is fast, fairly vicious, and raw, but not exactly dark or sinister, unlike the more black/death-oriented extreme metal coming from Brazil at the time. It’s okay but lacks distinctive atmosphere and offers very little in the way of memorability. In the end, my basic response is: “yeah, early Brazilian thrash core…what else ya got?” Next…
— Friar Wagner

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FRAGMENT, Fragment (2011, demo)

The skull:
From the shadow, I guess we’re to imagine this cracked skull fell onto a large canvas featuring a two-color painting of birds and hash marks. That doesn’t make any sense, but the alternative, that a skull enshrouded in some black miasma got stuck on an old TV radial antenna while some birds, eager to slurp up the remains of his exposed grey matter, circle in the background, is even more confounding, so I guess I’m going to run with the painting interpretation. Or maybe run from it. Yeah, that’s a better preposition there.

The music:
Fragment sound like a traditional Scandinavian death metal band who, in 1995 suddenly realized that “melodic” is the hot new prefix to “death metal” and started adding twin axe harmonies and a bit of dynamics to their sound. The basic sound is still more or less old school, but the trim is decidedly newer. Of course, Fragment are a new band, and not some act from the mid 90s, which makes the exact alchemy of their sound a bit harder to explain, but in any case, it works pretty well, and serves as a tonic for the various trendy death metal strains of today, most of which are rather annoying. The sound is also refreshingly naturalistic (at least as much as death metal can sound) and there are no obvious markers of studio shortcuts to be heard. All in all, this is a solid demo of well-written, moderately technical (in the way Death was technical) death metal, and I while I think the band might find their particular sound to be a tough sell, if they stick it out I bet they release a killer debut album.
— Friar Johnsen