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

SKULL396

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Friar Wagner

FILTHEATER, Tenebrae (2011, Plague)

The skull:
The largest picture we have of this cover isn’t huge, but it looks like those are maggots shivering out from under the skull, having fed on the fleshy gunk left behind by the poor decomposed subject. Looking at the bigger picture, one wonders: At what temperature do maggots melt? It must be an extremely high one, and I’ve arrived at this conclusion because not only did the candles flanking the skull melt, but it appears to be so hot in there that the skull’s cheek bones turned into Richard Nixon-esque jowls. Take a look! We have not seen the likes of this before here at Big Dumb Skulls HQ, and likely will never see it again. [The Elders of the Council of the Skull have awarded a special badge of honor to Filtheater, as every single one of their releases features a skull, skulls, or a human head that’s real close to becoming a skull.]

The music:
Now this is chaotic noise-drenched death metal a guy can rock out to. I quite like this little EP, a caustic, ripping, raw 20 minutes that sort of sounds like Brutal Truth covering Nuclear Death. The drumming and overall production aesthetic resembles Brutal Truth, and the noise-factor, including riffs that sound like they were written by a tone-deaf guitarist, are evocative of my beloved Nuclear Death. The ability is here, with every member capably delivering their part of the bloodthirsty, unhinged madness. It’s clear this band truly believe in what they’re doing and their sound is more convincing than many modern-day US death metal bands content to rip off Incantation a little too closely. There’s a crust vibe in spots, and big chunks of Fiend for Blood-era Autopsy too, yet Filtheater emerges from the wreckage with a sound that, while showing its influences, is pretty much all their own. I don’t yet own anything by this band, but as soon as they compile these tape and ridiculously-limited EP releases into some sort of collection, I’m buyin’.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL394

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Friar Wagner

SIGN OF THE JACKAL, The Beyond (2011, Heavy Artillery)

The skull:
“Limited Edition,” eh? Life is a limited edition, and this fact is underscored by the skull on the cover. No nonsense, no manipulation, no fancy stuff — just a grim reminder that this is all we’re left with at the end. But you know what they say: live well and leave a pretty skull. And this skull leaves a shinier, rounder dome than most. Call him the Kojak of skulls. The design is a deliberate attempt to look all 1983 even though it’s 2011, and I suspect that, given that clue and the fact this is on Heavy Artillery, we’re not dealing with avant-garde cutting edge metal here. I could be wrong.

The music:
I’ve been wrong on many occasions about a lot of things, but not this time. Sign Of The Jackal are indeed throwbacks to a simpler time in metal, when skulls were skulls and men wore tiger-striped spandex without any sense of irony whatsoever. Then again, it’s hardly genius-level intuition that brought me to this prediction. SotJ play straightforward, tried-and-true trad-metal…so true, in fact, that it sounds like metal forged in the days prior to thrash (think 1982). The vocals of Laura Coller are not strong, yet she still manages to impress thanks to some memorable, what we used to called “commercial” sounding harmonies (a great example being “Night of the Undead”). There’s an instrumental here called “Paganini Horror,” which sounds like a Great Kat song title, but it’s better (would be difficult not to be better than the Great Kat). A couple other originals go in one ear and out the other, although it’s hard to not enjoy them just a tiny bit as they fly by. Then there’s a cover song, “Head Over Heels.” Not the great Accept nugget, but some band called Meghan. I didn’t bother researching further, because it’s pretty weak. The originals boast lyrics that are hilariously lame — a composite of them would read thusly: “zombies awaiting your cursed metal bones tonight,” complete with some egregious grammatical errors. But they hail from Italy, and their English is certainly better than my Italian, so we’ll give them a pass. I give this band some credit and I give them some grief, but they’re better than anything I’ve heard by, say, Girlschool, which is a fair enough comparison. In fact, this sits somewhere in between “classic” Girlschool and the decidedly tougher sound of early Chastain, if we’re talking about female-fronted heavy metal. And that’s exactly what we’re talking about. But no more, because the EP is over and I probably won’t stick around for a third listen.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL393

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Friar Wagner

ROTTREVORE, Disembodied (2005, Necroharmonic)

The skull:
This is an appealing piece of skull art, rendered in a semi-Seagrave kind of style, as if the acid Dan took that day was weaker than his usual dose. This isn’t Seagrave at all, as far as I know, but there are some stylistic similarities. Not so much in the skull, but certainly those horn-like, tentacle-ish, large intestine-esque things have a Seagrave sort of flair to them. They’re so cool and trippy that I lose all focus on the skull, who sits there amidst all this stuff going “Hey, what about me???” And he is worth a look, especially those teeth. Might wanna slap a gold grill on those choppers.

The music:
I have always loved Rottrevore at a distance. Their commitment to being the heaviest of the heaviest death metal is appreciated, and I like them a song at a time, but they get dull rather quickly. You have to marvel at the obscene guitar/bass sounds, which combine to resemble a big-ass tractor engine. “Actions for Loss” is a prime example of their approach (and a highly unusual song title for an English-speaking death metal band), as is the entirety of their Copulation of the Virtuous and Vicious 7″. Those songs and more are all here on Disembodied, a collection of demo, EP and compilation tracks from the good old days (early 1990s). I applaud how ridiculously heavy these guys are, and I probably should have picked up this compilation when it was released, because it’s nowhere to be found these days. That way I could live with my decision to sell my Copulation 7″ years ago. I kind of regret that now, because Disembodied is sounding really good at the moment. Oh, wait, I just got bored with them again.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL390

Posted on January 25, 2014 by Friar Wagner

MYSTIC PROPHECY, Ravenlord (2011, Massacre)

The skull:
If this dude is the Ravenlord, he might want to start looking for a successor. Bleeding from the head is never good, especially when all you’ve got left of your corporeal existence is a skull. You’re pretty much reaching the end at that point. The wings that sprout from behind his head are apparently attached to him, and perhaps these are acting as his deliverance to some unspecified afterlife-type location. Who the fuck knows. The ravens shown in mirror image above the wings: are these Polar Ravens? Because they look snowy. With all the occult-ish nonsense in the background, I’m starting to think this cover was supposed to look evil, but really I just want to be the good samaritan, get a big Band-Aid for the dude’s head and continue on my way.

The music:
This band are known largely as the place where modern-day guitar hero Gus G. got his start. They’ve been prolifically releasing albums since 2001, and this one is their seventh. I haven’t paid much attention to these guys over the years, and while I’m still not gonna be running out to complete my M.P. collection, Mystic Prophecy definitely have some worth. In general they resemble a heavier, darker Nocturnal Rites, with all the modernisms N.R. started introducing with the introduction of vocalist Jonny Lindqvist and the Afterlife album (in no way, shape or form am I saying they’re that good. Nobody will ever beat Afterlife at its own game. Every metal fan should own it). Should Nocturnal Rites ever part with Jonny, they can get this Roberto Dimitri Liapakis guy, because the two are very similar. Gruff yet with excellent melodic ability, delivered with a ton of passion and power. It’s not hard to fall under the spell of his melodies on something like “Eyes of the Devil.” He works some similarly mighty magic throughout, always coming across as a Jonny Lindqvist/Mats Leven sort of singer with a penchant for catchy, AOR-esque melodies. He’s the clear highlight here. While you’re guaranteed some galvanizing double-bass driven rhythms and colorful lead work with some nasty tones, their chug-chug-chug style of riffery is far too bland and gets old really quick. You can look at it as a platform for Liapakis to perform upon, but riffs in power metal bands shouldn’t be relegated to background scenery. It all gets a bit repetitive by fourth song “Damned Tonight,” but the vocalist keeps you listening intently all the way through final song “Back With the Storm,” although they almost lost me with penultimate track “Miracle Man” (yes, the Ozzy Osbourne song). Even though Mystic Prophecy is German, they’re an honorary Swedish band as far as I’m concerned, considering all the references to great Swedish melodic heavy metal bands in their music. On a final note: the band’s album-titling pattern is getting stale. Lots of cutely “dark” invented compound words: Fireangel, Ravenlord, Killhammer. My money’s on Thundertoaster for the next one.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL388

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Friar Wagner

INDESTRUCTIBLE NOISE COMMAND, Heaven Sent…Hellbound (2011, Rising)

The skull:
There’s something hilariously tacky here, and it’s not the fanged and helmeted skull. It’s not the generic Photoshoppery, and it’s not the fact we’re getting yet another blah-brown album cover (enough already!). It’s those little lightning streaks coming out of the bullhorns, bullhorns that are apparently commanding us with indestructible noise. Thank god for those little lightning bolts or we would have never been able to comprehend the high concept here. They tossed in an upside down star and a tattered flag too. You look at this cover and pretty much know the music’s going to stink. You’d think after a 22-year absence they’d have something more to say instead of rolling out all the usual overdone metal cliches, but then look at what band we’re dealing with here…

The music:
Was never a big fan of these guys back in the day. Their third-rate thrash couldn’t really compete with the many better bands doing pretty much the same thing. They played in a Testament/Metallica sort of vein: upbeat and tight, aggressive but controlled, ripped jeans, white high tops…you know the story. They disappeared without much fanfare after 1988’s The Visitor and reformed in 2010, also without much fanfare. They blessed us with this clumsily-titled full-length album a year later, and it’s horrible. Now they sound like Pantera meets Machine Head, and even if you like Pantera and Machine Head, chances are you won’t accept this poor facsimile. They really should have known better and tried to appeal to the Municipal Waste crowd instead. It was extremely difficult to sit through this overly-long album (nearly 60 minutes), especially with that dog barking like Phil Anselmo the whole time. Apparently this band is only destined to follow in the footsteps of their heroes (and far behind), be it Bay Area thrash then or modern aggro toughguy metal now.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL386

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Friar Wagner

SOL ASUNDER, Horribly Human (2007, self-released)

The skull:
Taking a page from the Dave McKean book (at best) and trying to cop the vibe of those early My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost album covers by melding death and nature to make some sort of poetic statement or some shit, this thing is pretty lame. A totally low-rent version of the McKean and Travis Smith sort of deal. I see something that sort of looks like butterfly wings amongst the black smudges, and they went all-out with the pale green flora there.

The music:
If you told me this band was from the US and showed me the album cover and then asked me to guess what kind of music they play, I would have said “Swedish-style melodic death metal.” And that’s kind of what they do, but they have a much heavier approach than your typical band in this vein. Saying that they’re in the In Flames school of SMDM would be like saying Skeletonwitch play Testament-esque thrash. Because, yes, they do, but it’s way, way, way heavier and way more modern, to the point that the root influence is smothered. That’s what’s happening here — it’s almost like Sol Asunder are ushering in a new age of melodic death metal where the influence of Iron Maiden is nil, bands like Maiden and Helloween being considered quaint by these kids who were shitting their Pampers when Whoracle was released. It’s nice that Sol Asunder remember to put the “death” in “melodic death metal” (musically and vocally), and there is definite musical ability here, but they’re not doing enough to stand apart from the minions of melodic death and modern death bands, all of who continue to render each other redundant with their interchangeability and lack of unique traits. These guys were storming along quite nicely as an independent live and recording unit between 2003 and 2009, but seem to have fallen off the map a little bit these last few years. You hardly noticed, right?
— Friar Wagner

SKULL384

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Friar Wagner

P.L.F., Pulverizing Lethal Force (2008, Obsessed With Wickedness)

The skull:
Here he is, the Skullmaster General, complete with all-seeing third eye and spike-laden battle helmet! He comes flanked by his rat minions, who will eat anything Skullmaster General does not. The ulna bones (or maybe femur bones) are apparently the remains of a recent meal. At least, that’s what I’m going with. It’s unclear whether they belong to the skull, and they can’t possibly be from the rats. And maybe those rats are actually opossums, judging from their snout. Holy shit, with a scene like this and these sorts of bad-ass characters roaming the nether-regions, anything’s possible!

The music:
17 songs in 20 minutes, woo-hoo! Originally released with a non-skull cover, Obsessed With Wickedness put things to rights and reissued it a year later with this album cover. So, are P.L.F. actually a pulverizing lethal force? They’re definitely pulverizing. “Lethal” is probably open to interpretation, but I’ll give them lethal. This is some incredibly ferocious and energetic death-leaning grindcore. A prerequisite for this sort of thing is total power and, at its very foundations, P.L.F. deliver on “lethal.” A “force” would be like a Napalm Death or even a Nasum, so I’m not sure grind clones like these guys would qualify as a “force.” But that’s really reading way too much into music that’s supposed to be of-the-moment. Here today, gone tomorrow, just like most halfway decent grindcore bands. I’ll admit that P.L.F., while not exactly a force, are just a notch above “halfway decent.” If you dig this stuff, you’ll love it. I’ll stick with Terrorizer and prime-era Napalm Death, because my attention span for this kind of thing is very short beyond the godfathers of the style. Funny little note: Before this album the P.L.F. stood for the apparently ironic Pretty Little Flower. Taking a page out of the Summertime Daisies book, eh guys?
— Friar Wagner

SKULL382

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Friar Wagner

ORCHID, Through The Devil’s Doorway (2009, The Church Within)

The skull:
Remember those Madball toys? Those baseball-sized spheres depicting weird-ass faces that looked like rejected Garbage Pail Kids? This Orchid skull looks like the skull of any given Madball. It’s a pretty retro-cosmic image, and those stars make it look like that old Proctor & Gamble logo. A fairly cool piece of art, a spherical skull trapped in psychedelic swirl…ready to sell you abrasive kitchen and bathroom cleanser.

The music:
Amongst the stoner-doom contingent, young San Francisco band Orchid are hugely revered already. And while they’re very good at what they’re doing, what they’re doing — ripping off a particular era of Ozzy-fronted Black Sabbath — is no more or less interesting than Sheavy and Count Raven, who staked their claim on this hallowed ground eons ago. Personally, I don’t need another band like this. Now, Witchcraft, there’s a band…a band that somehow manages to push forward and look ahead while drawing from the same well of inspiration as Orchid. Part of that’s down to songwriting acumen, and part of it is knowing not to cross the fine line where inspiration and plagiarism meet. Let me just go ahead and state the obscenely obvious: Black Sabbath did it better than anybody else. Of course I hear other ’70s and ’80s bands within Orchid’s sound, but just listen to this and tell me it’s not 98% derived from Black Sabbath 1970-1975: “No One Makes a Sound” < “Supernaut” // “Into the Sun” < “Symptom of the Universe” // “Son of Misery” < “Hand of Doom.” What’s the fucking point???
— Friar Wagner

SKULL380

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Friar Wagner

JUDECCA, Eternal Rest (1992, demo)

The skull:
I don’t see a bell, but they got the book and candle part down. This demo cover is something we’re starting to notice as a fairly frequent occurrence here at BDS, taking some old master’s painting, or a detail of it, and slapping it onto your tape or album, hoping nobody notices. It’s a common Big Dumb Skull cover motif subset; welcome to the club, Judecca! (Other examples: Skull327, Skull265, Skull241) I dig how Judecca’s logo manages to be fat, blocky AND drippy. You don’t see the fat/blocky/drippy combo much.

The music:
Back in the day you couldn’t open your mail without a Judecca flyer falling out. That was mostly in the period when the band was being distributed and released by Wild Rags Records, whose mail flyering was second-to-none. I well remember Judecca’s name from those days, but apparently aggressive flyering doesn’t always work, because I still hadn’t heard them until today. Surprisingly, I wasn’t able to find their Eternal Rest demo anywhere, but maybe I didn’t scour the Internet quite hard enough. Really, though, the next year’s demo, 1993’s Scenes of an Obscure Death, can’t be THAT different from Eternal Rest, can it? Listening to Scenes…, and given its affiliation with Wild Rags, I’m not surprised this sounds like it was recorded in a damp basement with cheap knock-off equipment on a boombox. Stylistically it’s somewhere in the area of long-forgotten NYC band Sorrow, has a Six Feet Under sort of simplicity, and a whiff of early Death/Mantas too. It’s marginally interesting in spots, like the charmingly clunky break in “Unspeakable Acts,” its wailing sustained guitar note providing water in an oasis of dull riffs, dull rhythms and standard-issue death vox that are very much the epitome of second rate death metal demo vocals circa 1993. But those little moments are just the reactions of ears desperate for something along the lines of early Asphyx and not getting it (by that I mean Judecca’s component parts seem to promise that sort of sound, yet they never deliver it). The fan in me that loves Nuclear Death, Blasphemy and Hellwitch keeps hoping to uncover some obscure Wild Rags release that I can sit alongside those gems, but it isn’t gonna be Judecca.
— Friar Wagner