Author Archives: Friar Wagner

SKULL360

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NYOGTHAEBLISZ, Progenitors of Mankind’s Annihilation  (2003, demo)

The skull:
Bonus points for the super-great logo, which drips in complete harmony with the skull itself, which looks like it’s starting to melt. Maybe a contact lens with the radiation symbol on it wasn’t a good choice after all. Fucking jokers at Lenscrafters, the skull went in and just wanted something rebellious. Gotta watch out for those assholes. Guess it’s back to stupid clunky glasses for the Nyogthaeblisz skull. (Nickname: Spencer, in the tradition of Eddie and Vic Rattlehead and all that.)

The music:
Just when I thought I’d heard the most necrolicious black metal ever recorded comes Nyogthazeirqfkdafldblitz. While this demo has got the basement/cave quality of something like Ildjarn, in its most frenzied moments (like, most all of it) it sounds closer to a lo-fi Merzbow than a Gorgoroth or Horna or whatever. You could argue that it’s high art in its disorienting, blurry, beyond-extreme approach, but even for somebody that can take extremity at its most distant outer fringes, there’s nothing offered here that would make me return a second time. I do like how they mix deeply chaotic dark occult black metal imagery with post-nuclear imagery, lots of “bioterroristic” this and “thermonuclear” that. As this 23-minute demo reaches about the nine minute mark, I feel like I’ve heard it all, these guys making early Anaal Nathrakh and those ancient Mayhem demos sound trite and safe by comparison, but without any graspable substance. Nah, I kid, these boys are gonna take it all the way to the top! It’s something everyone can enjoy, and I see nothing but success on the horizon for these ghoulish Texas-born shock-rockers — they just need to change the name to something more chant-able at the summer festivals.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL358

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MAD MAZE, No Time Left… (2010, self-released)

The skull:
There isn’t much that thrills this Friar more than skull covers, but the hourglass motif comes close. There are around 50 of them in the metal universe, by my current count, and while they’re obviously not as prevalent as tanks and pentagrams, there’s just something about the hourglass. It was a motif popularized by the mid-’90s post-Dream Theater prog metal crowd, but lots of other bands have gotten into the act too. And looky here, a Skullglass, just in time for Christmas! If you add bonus points (and I most certainly will) for the skullglass sitting atop the Earth (meaning this thing measures an ungodly size) and having a freaking maze (a “mad” one, we’re assuming) on top of the skull’s flat head, hey, you have Big Dumb Skulls GOLD here.

The music:
It was bound to happen with all this thrash being thrown at us lately (lotsa Brazilian stuff, Mexican, German, and now this Italian band) — something was going to rise above the rest. Mad Maze are so good that I can only applaud their efforts. And they’re one of few bands I’ve gotten an earful of via Big Dumb Skulls that I’ve actually gone back and listened to voluntarily, after my BDS duties have been fulfilled. They’re basically North American in approach: a heavy whiff of Testament, cleaner Exodus, some Anthrax, Annihilator, and back to the Bay Area. And while they draw as many comparisons to older thrash legends as the other retro-thrash bands do, there’s something about Mad Maze that doesn’t make you want to retch. They are, in fact, quite excellent. The vocals are standard tough guy thrash bellows, basically Chuck Billy-ish, but still defying any truly easy comparison. They’re the weakest element of No Time Left, but every now and then they also impress (as when he pushes into a higher register scream at the end of the opening track). The rhythm section is noticeably good, a capable couple of guys, nimble at the speediest of times and weaving through various tempo shirts with great dexterity. But it’s the lead guitar work that’s most impressive. I’m not sure who to credit here, as they have two guitarists, but when they break into solos I’m reminded of Alex Skolnick around the time of Practice What You Preach, complete with the clean, punchy rhythm backup he got on that album. Yeah, there’s a heavy Testament vibe here, and while I love the first three Testament albums, I don’t really care to hear an Italian version of them, yet here I am, legitimately enjoying Mad Maze. Opener “Lord of All That Remains” is the standout of this short 4-song EP, and if they have even a few songs in that vein on the follow-up full-length, Frames of Alienation, I would gladly give it a listen. There are seemingly a couple hundred new Italian thrash bands playing in the old style, and of the ones I’ve heard (maybe about 30 of them), these guys are the best. Each song offers an event or two that feel relatively unique, using familiar ingredients while also finding a way to also deliver a distinctive Mad Maze stamp. And you can’t say that for most of these other re-thrashers.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL356

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REPENT, Deadly Thrash Attack  (2001, demo)

The skull:
“Howdy! Come on in! Flip up your ballcap brims and skank along with Repent, Germany’s premier thrash metal revival band! We love thrash, especially really thrashy thrash! Come on, you can trust a goony smiling skull like me — this is your life, your thrash!”

The music:
Don’t listen to the skull. He crazy. This band have been pumping out dull assembly-line thrash since 1997, stuff that sounds like third rate Brit-thrash circa 1992. Just what you need, right? Since they’ve been doing it for almost two decades, their tenacity is noted. But pretty much all their releases utilize a skull, or skulls, or skeletons, in various combinations, showing this band is bereft of original ideas across the board and proven over the duration of this 6-song, 19-minute exercise in redundancy.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL354

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VIOLATOR, Annihilation Process  (2010, Kill Again)

The skull:
We see a lot of skulls here at Big Dumb Skulls. Many are big, most are dumb, and too many of them are boring pieces of non-art. Not this one. This cover art is all kinds of interesting, throwing out a nightmare scenario that happened one day to the citizens of some unknown metropolis. The skies turned pink and purple that morning. The dude doing the crazy backflip in the foreground was just minding his own business, walking to the bus stop, when outta nowhere comes this humongous skull whipping up all kinds of frenzy. His jaw dislocates itself to reveal a reptilian tongue of tremendous length while he belches missiles. (And he’s got a flat pig nose, too.) The missles haven’t even fired yet and we’ve already got a tremendous explosion to deal with. Bodies fly, cars slip over, buildings cave in…just all kinds of trauma. Where the huge mechanical pinchers in the bottom right and the mechanical tentacles in the background come from is a whole other story, and a whole other level of hell that these citizens are dealing with.

The music:
Third Brazilian band in a row for this Friar, and one that I name-checked in the Farscape review (skull 350). I’ll throw Violator a bone and call them “actually good.” I don’t care much for these third rate re-thrash bands, but a couple of them do it so well that you have to give them a pass, and I’ll do that for Violator. Their sound is exclusively fast and frenzied, reminding of single-minded US bands of the past such as Vio-lence and Gammacide, with vocals similar to Germany’s Assassin (Violator’s background vocals sound like “Baka!!!” and “Chocomel!!!” to me…fans of Interstellar Experience will understand). Every song on this EP sounds exactly the same, but you might expect that. They seem to know their thrash history, at least their own country’s thrash history, because they cover the obscure “You’ll Come Back Before Dying” from the obscure Executer, off their obscure third demo, circa 1989. It sounds just like a Violator original.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL352

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VIOLENT HATE, Rising From the Past  (2009, Mutilation)

The skull:
This guy is all decked out in blades. Look at ’em all! So many sharp edges here, amidst an unholy red mess of creepy writhing tendrils. It’s almost enough to take attention away from the skull, who looks mighty evil with that upside-down star on his forehead. Unfortunately, all that evil is rendered inert due to the missing front tooth that makes him look like a redneck skull, a skull that took a wrong turn on his hike…and ended up playing with the powers of Hell. “I didn’t know, man, I was just waltzing along minding my own business when all these blades showed up and this pentagram came flyin’ in and stuck onto my head.” Sure, buddy. Sure.

The music:
Violent Hate’s biggest claim to fame is sharing space with Krisiun on a 1993 split. Their music recalls elements of Deicide, Vital Remains, and Vader, although it lacks a firm identity of its own (which is funny, because even Vader lacks a firm identity of their own, but that’s another story). You’re getting faceless garden variety death metal of a super-heavy inclination here. It’s been done better, it’s been done worse. If you’re actually interested, though, this collection would set you up nicely, as it gives you most of their recorded material. All except their very first demo from 1992, which means you will not get the stone cold death metal classic, “Like a Bitch in Heat.” Oh, and one of their members gives us the finger from under a brim-flipped S.T.-like ballcap. Badass, dude.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL350

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FARSCAPE, Doctrine Sickness (2001, demo)

The skull:
Are we really on skull #350 already? What a crazy world. But before we get to the skull itself, I’m a little confused about the demo title. Is it sickness from having read or followed too much doctrine to the point you’ve been made physically ill? Or is it, like, bad-ass doctrine, as in “Dude, that doctrine you’re spewing is SICK!” We may never know, and this skull doesn’t offer any helpful hints. All this skull does is look completely batshit crazy. Not sure what’s in his eyes, but it appears to be cosmic and glowing. He’s got some liquid junk coming out of his mouth, too. Since this is black and white, it’s probably supposed to be blood, but looks more like spittle. Either fluid would be appropriate. Then there’s that ridiculous-looking wisp of hair, which looks like a guy going bald desperately trying to hang onto his last several strands. Or maybe he’s a metal dude adopting a faux-Hare Krishna style, you know, the metalhead that’s always left of left-of-center, just to be all idiosyncratic and random and shit. And what the hell are those wing-like things? They’re full of goo and wrapped in what looks like barbed-wire. Like I said: batshit muhfuggin’ kuh-RAY-ZAY.

The music:
These Brazilians play vicious, biting, ultra-intense thrash that brings to mind early Sadus, early Kreator, Darkness Descends-era Dark Angel, and off-the-chain Brazilian brethren like Vulcano and Violator. There’s not much more to say, as what you read is exactly what you get. They’re very good at it, and if I’d never been exposed to the aforementioned, I’d be going apeshit over this. The riffs are good, the intensity is high, the delivery is spot-on, and the conviction is true. How much you need Farscape in your life will depend on how many layers you like to peel off the thrash-generations onion. It makes me cry after about two layers, usually.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL348

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AUTOPSY, Macabre Eternal  (2011, Peaceville)

The skull:
We appreciate that this is a truly BIG skull; you don’t need an expert on scale to see that this is a weighty proposition for these zombie creatures to move across their landscape of horror. There’s nothing very dumb about it, though: Wes Benscoter has done some great work, and this is up there with his absolute best. Not until gazing at the cover for this BDS spiel did I imagine it as a morbid alternate take on Gulliver’s Travels, the Lilliputians being tiny emaciated zombies. The nasty little critters have just fed on Gulliver’s flesh and are seen here dragging his defleshed skull to some unknown destination, probably to be set up as a lawn ornament at the home of the Lilliputian Zombie King. (Please ignore the beheaded guy standing in the background…that’s some other dude they beheaded before Gulliver came along.) Even though these Lilliputian zombies should be hardened to the depravity of their day-to-day existence, some of them, if you look closely, look appalled at the scene, with looks on their faces that seem to say “How did it come to all this???” Be sure to buy my forthcoming book, Re-imagining Gulliver’s Travels, sure to set fire to the literary world a la Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The zombie thing isn’t overdone yet, right?

The music:
Up there with Surgical Steel when it comes to better-than-average comeback albums, Macabre Eternal is one of the greatest Autopsy albums, old or new. More memorable than this year’s The Headless Ritual, and more cohesive than older albums Shitfun and Acts of the Unspeakable, it found Autopsy returning to what they do best, yet songs like “Bridge of Bones” and “Sadistic Gratification” find the band expanding their range too. These two tracks bring some new ideas to the table, and in the case of the latter, finds Autopsy working with extended length and relatively complex arrangement ideas that they’d never before attempted. And there’s plenty of doom-laden horror and ridiculous depravity throughout the other, more traditional Autopsy songs. The guitar tones and soloing of the Corrales/Cutler team are here in all their gory glory, while Chris Reifert not only rocks the drumkit unlike most other death metal drummers, he expands his vocal range to include a kind of perverted talk-singing that’s sometimes hard to swallow, but if you’re in the mood, it takes you to a putrid, crazy place. A completely enjoyable slab of fucked-up ugliness from an incomparable death metal legend.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL346

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DIABOLIKAL, Devastacion, Aniquilacion, Destruccion  (2008, demo)

The skull:
This guy looks like he was caught with his pants down in the tiny entryway of a mineshaft. Now how the hell did this happen? I can offer no explanation, but the grainy treatment gives it a bleak and spooky feel, helping divert attention from that fact that the skull was caught with his pants down — that is, if he had hips and legs, which there seem to be no evidence for. Still, he looks a bit like the proverbial deer in the headlights, doesn’t he?

The music:
Shitloads of spikes, 25 pounds of leather, loads of chains, crazy-ass corpsepaint and all the right patches on your denim do not automatically guarantee entry into the hall of nekro death/thrash/black infamy. This Chilean band are offering nothing new, interesting, dangerous or diabolical on this five-song, 13-minute demo. Lame music is lame music, no matter how much cool shit you dress it up in. Yet another mediocre metal band not worth remembering.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL344

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LEGION666, Outbreak of Evil (2003, Iron Bonehead Productions)

The skull:
Charming in its hand-drawn crudeness, you can’t lose with an inverted crucifix slapped on the forehead and the title lettering dripping blood, or dripping some black shit that looks like blood. Totally “cult” in appearance, the eye holes of this skull have a curiously odd shape about them, looking more like designer sunglasses than legitimate eye sockets. They’d be called “Fat Casket, by Prada,” and this would be the company’s advertisement for said shades. It could happen.

The music:
This is Legion666’s side of a split shared with fellow Canadian black/thrash band Megiddo. Since Legion666’s original music is akin to Amebix meets early Sodom, it’s wholly appropriate that the bands cover Amebix and Sodom on this split. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, eh? So, do Legion666 do anything unusual or interesting with Sodom’s “Outbreak of Evil”? Not really. It recreates the trashy production and unchained ferocity of the original, but it’s crustier in a way where you just know at least half the band wear dreadlocks or have their hair crimped a la Axegrinder. And if they don’t, they should. I guess it’s worth one listen…but only one.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL342

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THE UGLY, Diggin’ Graves  (2006, demo)

The skull:
This skull was apparently caught diggin’ graves and this is pic # 2 of his mug shot. “Turn to the side, please.” So the skull turns to the side and mocks the officer with an open-mouthed sneer. Asshole.

The music:
Overused Sample #2: “To know death, Otto, you have to fuck life…in the gall bladder!” (From 1973’s Flesh for Frankenstein.) Just like that overused “unleash hell” line from Gladiator, it’s a great sample, but has been overused by numerous bands who can’t be bothered to come up with something more original. Of course, sampling itself is borrowing someone else’s work, so how original can you expect them to be? (I’ll answer my own question: Very. Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique is a great example.) It should be no surprise, then, that this Swedish band are none too original, musically. It’s super-fast black metal in the vein of countrymen like Marduk, 1349, The Legion, et al., perhaps a bit more bottom-heavy and modern. But only slightly. It’s played very well too, but is incredibly redundant in the final analysis. What’s most interesting about this band is their imagery, not only this demo but their album cover of two years later, Slaves to the Decay. These look like offerings by some punk’n’roll band, or one of those Black Label Society wanna bes. But no, musically it’s seething Satanic speed and screechy vocals all the way. So give ’em a couple points for avoiding being totally stale.
— Friar Wagner