Author Archives: Friar Wagner

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PARAXISM, Paraxism  (1992, demo)

The skull:
With this skull, Paraxism have allowed us to confidently draw a new subset branch on the Skull Cover Motif tree. And this guy, he isn’t too happy about this fate. He looks downright traumatized. This is one of a handful of skulls now officially “Embedded in Rock Wall [popular skull cover motif no. 36].” Nile is one of the memorable ones (Skull75) and we’ve got a couple more coming up soon! So for those rabid Big Dumb Skulls fans who particularly love skulls embedded in rock walls, hang onto the edge of your seats.

The music:
Forever underrated and overlooked, Paraxism is probably one of the most interesting bands to come from Finland’s early ’90s death metal wave. And, as many of their countrymen would, the band evolved from cruel brutality to something more rocking by the end of their evolution (a la Xysma, Disgrace and Convulse), all of these bands wisely avoiding sounding too obviously “death ‘n’ roll.” Thank fuck. While Paraxism’s synth-heavy 1995 demo (Selected Works) remains the apex of their output, and their final recording, a demo from 1998, is nearly unlistenable in its angular, dissonant, and cold alt-rock delivery, this first demo finds the band treading more orthodox boards. It’s not totally far away from most other Finnish death metal bands of the time, but there’s something inherently catchy and even semi-melodic in tunes like “Benefical Interdependence” and “The Breath of Plague” that sets it apart. Ultimately this is more than a mere curiosity from a band I’ve always championed (to mostly deaf ears, except for a couple guys in Agalloch who I turned onto this band a long time ago). But it’s not mandatory either, unless you’re a Finnophile looking for another cool tape to set next to your Funebre, Pakeni and  Nekro-Torso cassettes. All two of you.
— Friar Wagner

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BRAINDEAD, The Human Remnants Of… (1988, demo)

The skull:
This cover is like a victim’s-eye-view in the aftermath of nuclear holocaust. A mirage/hallucination of grinning death, the skull not actually there but seeming as real as the horrible remnants of the war. It’s formed of ash, dirt, and the skeletal remains of buildings that were blasted to bits. Even if it’s a mirage, the skull looks a little worried, questioning himself: “Am I cut out for this? Am I worthy of taking on the role of mirrored alter-image to the dying human that gazes at me to see only a grinning death’s head? Where can a guy get a cup of coffee around here? What the hell just happened? Why, why, why???”

The music:
This band from Portugal released two demos of cruel, ugly thrash in 1988, and then in the ’90s went the alternative/grunge route. There wasn’t even any kind of smooth transition. One decade they’re sounding like Protector, the next like a mixture of Beastie Boys, Faith No More and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Ouch. Listening to the short but sweet The Human Remnants Of…, it’s surprising that nobody has combined this with the other demo from that year, The Final Judgement, for a reissue, because there are probably plenty of people out there who would appreciate this stuff. Think Iron Angel meets Destruction meets Protector…yeah, who lotta German-esque stuff happening here. The recording is terrible, the guitars sounding like cement mixers and the drums being a haphazard sonic mess, but the writing and performances are solid enough that the overall cacophony is enjoyable, the effort a laudable one. There’s just enough imagination in terms of riffs, tempi, and arrangement, it manages to stand just a few heads (skulls?) above many similar acts. Within both tracks proper (“Wings of Insanity” is a shorter intro piece) there are generous slabs of early death metal, reminding of Morbid Angel’s earliest material, the off-the-rails nuttiness of Incubus, and Necrovore’s merciless churning. Much worse has been recorded and, much later, reissued, and I’d probably pick up a repackaging of this stuff, especially if they could master from the source tapes. Good luck, right?
— Friar Wagner

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HORRIFIER, Grim Fate  (2010, Witches Brew)

The skull:
I’ll let Youtuber 13MATTallica96 do the guest review of this album cover for us: “The album cover the great contract of fear and pain; the blinding hate and fire of war and the cold eery darkness of its aftermath…” That’s perhaps reading a bit much into it, but what he’s essentially saying is this: it conveys the yin yang of any fate that can be considered “grim,” that whatever awaits, you cannot escape. What I see here isn’t war, though, but a forest fire that this humongous skull got caught in, probably while hiking. To the skull’s left the scene abruptly turns to an ocean, but it looks like the skull is right near the shore, so if someone would just yell “Move to your left!! No, YOUR left!!” he might be able to swim or float to safety. Therein lies a maddening quandary, because even if he escapes the fire, skulls can’t swim. The holes formed by the curved zygomatic/temporal bones are likely the most pronounced we’ve ever seen on a skull cover, so kudos to the artist for that. Also, credit to the artist for what is a very well-executed painting. No joke, it’s better than most we see around these parts.

The music:
I think of early Metallica and Razor songs played by Acrophet when listening to Grim Fate. Of course, in 2010 that means it’s hopelessly derivative, but I suppose if this had come out in 1985, I would have bought it, listened to it a few times, kept it around and then in 1990 realized it was was never going to be listened to in favor of other, better thrash albums, and tossed it. How did I know “Exordium/From Beyond the Grave” was going to be their “(Welcome Home) Sanitarium” rip before even hearing it? Probably the slash, which makes it look all progressive and stuff. “Exordium” is actually just an intro that sounds like a rejected idea for Side 1, Song 4-era Metallica (1984, 1986, 1988), and “From Beyond the Grave” is more well-played but entirely unnecessary thrash. Sometimes Horrifier sounds like early Def Leppard, or early Jag Panzer, as on “True Metal Never Rusts!,” which shows the band into trad-metal as much as thrash. Somehow, though, the song reminds me of Krank or another such useless band from 1986. Yeah, here’s another band riding the nostalgia train without offering anything that’s actually of their own.
— Friar Wagner

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MILITARIS-TIC, Curse of Weapons  (2013, Bestial Burst)

The skull:
Most young male Finnish youth are required to perform compulsory military service, even though Finland is rarely embroiled in military scuffles. But they’re ready when and if necessary. However, since hand-to-hand combat is less crucial in this age of chemical warfare and unmanned aerial vehicles, the Finnish military forgot to buy helmets for their boys. Oops. As luck would have it, Finland had a surplus of American football helmets a few years ago. See, high schools across the country attempted to interest kids in American football a few years ago, but the program flopped, was eventually discontinued, and now there’s a surplus of gear kicking around every high school storage room in Finland. The military saw an opportunity to provide their young men with the helmets they need for combat, and thus:  the football helmet you see on the cover of Militaris-tic’s debut album. Apparently Curse of Weapons is a concept album about the lone casualty of war incurred in Finland this year, a dude who happened to be a buddy of the Militaris-tic guys. Blown to smithereens, only his head and helmet survived the ordeal. To commemorate him, the dudes in the band drew their logo on the football helmet, fashioned some syringes into mini-missile looking things, and laid their friend to rest on a camouflage blanket before burying it all. War is hell, and the football helmet didn’t help a goddamn bit.

The music:
This Finnish duo don’t take themselves too seriously, judging from the band photo (Raven meets Carnivore minus the fur) and that silly football-helmeted skull, but man, do they make a serious noise very much aligned with Discharge, Venom and Amebix. Actually, take those three bands, wrap them in a ball, put it in your mouth, get it all phlegm-covered and spit that chunk of noise in the face of someone you hate. It’s that gross and unsubtle. I hear a trace of early German thrash too, especially Destruction circa Sentence of Death, but the aesthetic is firmly England crust/punk/metal circa 1982. These 10 songs blast by quickly and although I’m not entirely convinced I have to own this (I’ve already got the Venom and Amebix records I need) it was an enjoyable listen. These guys have done time in numerous other Finnish bands you may have heard of, like Neutron Hammer, Ride For Revenge, Vitsaus, Incriminated and others, so their hearts are truly in this for life. Till death. I hope their next album features a skull in a hockey helmet, or even a baseball batting helmet.
—  Friar Wagner

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HATCHERY, Birth of a Bomb (2007, self-released)

The skull:
This cover is the bomb! There, I said it. I like that another German band checks in
with a bomb/warhead theme so soon after U.D.O.’s Timebomb, Skull280. This is one of the finest entries we Friars and the Council have ever seen, a favorite in the Skullection. I don’t have to walk you through this one…you can see very clearly why it rules. I mean, a bomb with a warhead fashioned into a skull, a skull grinning in anticipation of
killing hundreds upon impact, maybe thousands if he’s lucky. A kamikaze mission, for sure. The huge right earhole is weird — perhaps it’s a matter of aerodynamics — and I like the thin robotic arm with a human hand putting on a final weld or two before this sucker drops on some unfortunate mass of humanity.

The music:
With an album cover this good, the music was bound to disappoint. Hatchery play super-aggressive, super-energetic thrash with a vocalist who yelps hysterically above the din. Not quite Sean Killian (Vio-lence) but probably equally divisive to thrash fans; there are also some similarities to the guy in Lich King (who, incidentally, have an album called Born of the Bomb). Maybe it’s like early Bobby Blitz (Overkill) trying to sing Last Man on Earth-era Martin Van Drunen (that specific enough for you?). But this guy, Christian Muller, is clearly his own man, and admittedly pretty nuts. I’d recommend checking this album out only to experience his vocals. Musically Hatchery are a totally competent band, with moments that set them a level or two higher from the new-thrash pack, like the “Wasted Years”-esque guitar work that opens “Brotherhood,” or the excellent soloing at the end of “Above the Law.” They’re also not afraid of Anthrax-style gang vocals, or showing influence from straightforward traditional heavy metal (parts of “War”). But, yet again (and again…and again…and again) there are no truly inventive riffs here, it’s all been beaten to death, buried, exhumed, and beaten to fucking death again. So, I’d recommend this if you have a limitless love for pretty much all thrash yet prefer the upper tier of the NWoTM (Havok, Lich King, Evile). I’m not even gonna list Vektor, as they’re above it all. Hatchery does, at least, have something of their own sound happening, but that’s largely due to the vocalist’s crazed delivery. BTW, the word “hatchery” must carry a special meaning for those in Germany and Eastern Europe, because the only two metal bands in existence using this word are from the region (the other being Poland’s Calm Hatchery). There’s aren’t many words that are less metal than “hatchery.” Makes me think of tiny yellow chicks, or fish.
— Friar Wagner

 

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FUNERAL MARCH, Invite to Die!? (1992, Koroski Radio)

The skull:
Apparently released as a cassette-only album, judging by the shape of the artwork, this sports an album title of awkward-English, the kind of thing common to Eastern European and Japanese bands. Gotta love ’em. It looks like pure doom metal, if I had to wager a guess as to its musical content, all gothic horror in black and white. And we love skulls with bat wings around here, a motif made popular by Overkill, and Slovenia’s Funeral March add their own contribution to the niche. Note that the skull is somehow able to furrow his brow to create a deadly scowl. And dig the speeding black dots flying west at mach 10 in the background, lending a sci-fi edge to the supernatural goings-on in the foreground.

The music:
In the band picture I’m looking at, two of the four dudes (all who look about age 17) are sporting Sepultura shirts. And there is a whiff of Sepultura happening here, but it’s more Morbid Visions than Arise. Yep, Funeral March are raw and primitive, but just competent enough, blurring the lines between early thrash, death and black metal. It all ends up sounding like Morbid Visions covered by early Tiamat, such is its sluggish, rhythmically loose approach. They do rise to a higher level of complexity and competence with final song “Chernobil,” which happens to also be the longest song on the album (4:45). Otherwise the songs are quite short, averaging about two-and-a-half minutes in length. There’s a charm to this, and I like similar sounding acts of the era, but they’re not doing anything I can’t live without. If you like early Sepultura, early Tiamat, raw Greek black/thrash/death, and early Mortuary Drape, this would probably hold some level of appeal for you. Interestingly, my survey of Invite to Die!? on Youtube led to a completely unrelated link called ‘Never Let a Crack Head Sing at Your Funeral.’ It’s good fun, so check that out too.
— Friar Wagner

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DREADNAUGHT, Dirty Music  (2005, Roadrunner)

The skull:
Well this is a pretty low-rent album cover, huh? Looks like an electrical panel cover that some hooligan tagged with rust-colored spray paint using an admittedly well-made stencil. Exciting.

The music:
This band ended up on Roadrunner in Europe, sorta making them labelmates with Opeth, Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree and Rush…or if you wanna be more cynical, fucking Nickelback. Really, though, they belong on Pavement. Dreadnaught play simplistic groove metal that flirts with death ‘n’ roll, and would appeal to Black Label Society fans. So the guitarist plays some pretty gnarly leads…it doesn’t matter when the foundation is formulaic junk like “Scenester” and “Cut Throat Blues.” I hate to inform vocalist Greg Trull: you are NOT Maynard James Keenan, and I’ll bet Maynard thinks your band sucks. Clean vocal verses, an explosion of aggro in the chorus, repeat ad nauseum. We’ve heard it four zillion times before. Once I figure out how much this 40 minutes of wasted time is worth, I’ll be sending them a bill. What hath nu- and alt-metal wrought? Fuckers.
— Friar Wagner

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OLDSKULL, Breaking Bones  (2009, demo)

The skull:
These guys take it literal and give it back the same way. There’s a cracked skull on the cover and they title this thing Breaking Bones. The skull goes way back too, belonging to some Homo erectus rocker from the Pleistocene. Now that’s old! And it’s big too. And, although not as dumb as its ancestors Homo ergaster or the seriously knuckleheaded Homo habilis, it’s still dumb compared to us rocket scientists roaming the planet these days. So, Oldskull – Breaking Bones. Yeah, serious literality all up in this joint!

The music:
Holy cow, these Venezuelans love them some early Sodom and early Slayer. They’re probably the sort of guys who think Sodom sold out on the ultra-wimpy Persecution Mania and that Slayer went too progressive with Haunting the Chapel. While the vocals, especially on the title track, are pretty much cloned Tom Angelripper circa bowlcut bangs, musically they’re quite a bit tighter than the lovingly incompetent 1984-era Sodom. So, you can pretty much expect stock old-thrash riffs and ultra-straightforward rhythmic ideas that have been Xeroexed about 67,000 times over by now. But Oldskull’s good enough that if you were at a teenage basement beer party on the outskirts of Valencia somewhere and these dudes were playing, you’d hang out and watch. Good thing bassist Gabriel “Peluso” Burland only took lead vocals on one song, “Matter Over the Mind,” because he’s absolutely horrible. The kind of talk-singing stupidity that sucked back in 1988 when many New Renaissance bands were trashing it up, and apparently he’s single-handedly (“-throatedly”?) bringing back the magic. I wonder if these guys realize there was a novelty punk band of pre-teen kids called Old Skull that predated them by two decades? Probably not. They’re probably unaware of anything that happened in extreme music after 1985. Ignorance is bliss.
— Friar Wagner

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CALVARIUM, The Skull of Golgotha  (2003, Dynamic Arts)

The skull:
So, if you know or care about the skull of Golgotha, the place of the cross, and all that bullshit, you’re gonna love today’s Big Dumb Skull installment. In Calvarium’s depiction of that fable, the skull seems to emit a kind of glow, with a kind of spray rising from the top of the skull to dark storm clouds above. It was a dark day indeed, although it’s always a pretty crummy day when any human nails another human to a cross of wooden planks and leaves him to die there. The skull’s left-facing position is generally frowned upon by the Council, but we really do need to have some representation of the Golgotha skull in the Skullection, don’t we? And Trouble failed us with that when they released The Skull in 1985 (however, that cover totally rules, so we’re glad they left it to Calvarium to take on that awesome responsibility). Technically this is not a great piece of art — when the scale is considered this skull appears to be about 200 feet high and wide — but it’s not bad enough to take jabs at, so I won’t.

The music:
Like Valoton (SKULL274), here’s another Finnish band rising above the dull norm and at least trying to do something with a little substance and originality. “Originality” is probably a strong word, but Calvarium’s tunes are well-structured, well-executed, multi-tempo chunks of black metal that feel legitimately spooky without any cheesy contrivinces dumbing things down. The vocals are a few notches less screamy/screechy than the norm, having a kind of throaty, spittle-gurgling, depraved effect, while the guitars swim in a cacophonous wash that blankets everything in their wall of sound. When they speed it up, things lose a little identity and skirt towards the norm (“Horns of Hate,” “Siunatun Surma”), but something like “Jumalviha” has a theatrical vibe that reminds of early Samael and lots of the early ’90s Greek bands. Closer “Suicide Manifesto” creeps along in a sick lurch, bringing doom to the table, making it clear this band is more engaging when cruising on the slower side of the speedometer. While some moments throughout The Skull of Golgotha fall into a bland Marduk-esque malaise, there’s enough textural and tempo variety to keep the interest. And it’s played with the kind of authority you’d except from vets of the Finnish black metal movement; members of this band have also played in of Baptism, Behexen, Alghazanth, Funeris Nocturnum, Drowning the Light and Musta Kappeli, so there you go.
— Friar Wagner

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PRO-PAIN, Prophets of Doom  (2005, Continental)

The skull:
We here at Big Dumb Skulls forbid adding animal skulls to the Skullection. We’re looking for the human artifact only, although some skulls blur the line: human skulls with ram horns are a popular skull subset, as are human skulls that look more like primate skulls. But then, that’s to be expected, considering the close link between human and primate. So we let this one slide, partly because it’s so silly. This monkey-boy skull thing — with one very comical left ear hole — grins uncomfortably, like he’s being threatened into smiling for the portrait…as he rides a unicycle, of course. The dress hanging to his right and the assemblage of whatever-the-hell-that-is hanging to his left balance the frame, but otherwise seem to have no purpose. The mosaic tile treatment and the style of artwork itself lends a Victorian Gothic meets Vaudeville sort of aesthetic. I don’t have all the Pro-Pain album covers memorized, but I’ll bet a zillion dollars this is by far the most unlikely cover they’ve ever had, even considering the skull.

The music:
I love the Crumbsuckers’ Beast on My Back album. Surpassing their pretty decent crossover debut, B.O.M.B. is a masterpiece of complex thrash and it has aged very well (despite a cover concept that took all of 2 and a half seconds to conceive). When they folded, I had high hopes that the Crumbsuckers rhythm section, Gary Meskil and Dan Richardson, would move in a similar direction with their new band Pro-Pain. But no, they went all toughguy. Their debut, Foul Taste of Freedom, is an album of dull hardcore aggro and muscle metal rage. And they’ve been taking the low road ever since. Prophets of Doom is the ninth in a seemingly never-ending campaign to be as boring and utterly useless as possible. I even saw this band live twice, somewhere around the time of their third album, and they had zero appeal. There’s not much to say about Prophets of Doom, other than it’s aggressive and loud and shouty and all those things your parents would say about it. People who like heavy music but haven’t been exposed to more than a handful of bands might enjoy it. For anyone deeper into the metal genre, there’s literally nothing here for you. Unless unflavored knucklehead jump-metal appeals to you. I respect their longevity, and Gary’s role in the Crumbsuckers (Dan’s long been gone), but that’s about it.
— Friar Wagner