Author Archives: Friar Wagner

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BEASTWARS, Blood Becomes Fire (2013, self-released)

The skull:
Here we have a skull cover so badass, so expertly painted, so perfectly perfect in its perfection, there will be very little need for snarky comment here. Look at it! It’s like the greatest science fiction book cover for the greatest science fiction novel ever. A skull slowly creeps up on a planet that once thought him a moon, and then starts quietly blasting away at the planet’s other moons, which he has gathered and brought closer for the denizens of the planet to get a good look at. Or perhaps it is sucking up these worlds like so much inconsequential dust into an industrial size vacuum tube. Problem is, there are no denizens in sight to bear witness, but hey, the main thrust of the mission is being carried out no fucking matter what. It’s like some apocalyptic version of the Asteroids video game come to life above a hot, arid desert planet, and it can’t help but recall Frank Herbert’s Dune series. Cool as hell. Only thing bringing down my enthusiasm is a pessimistic feeling that the music cannot possibly be as good as the cover.

The music:
These New Zealanders throw down some massive, monolithic stuff throughout Blood Becomes Fire. It’s one huge ball of burning sludge slammed up against even huger balls of burning sludge. It’s got an ominous, creepy quality to it, and they have a keener melodic component than most “sludge” bands, helping them transcend the lamentable sludge tag altogether. I hear everything from Giant Squid to Solstafir to Devin Townsend to Belew-era King Crimson in their music, and no doubt these guys would go down very well with fans of Mastodon. While I was hoping for something more along the lines of Ansur meets Gorguts meets Kayo Dot meets Bolt Thrower, I don’t think such a thing exists, so in that case, Beastwars capably convey the more-epic-than-epic imagery of their insanely great album cover.
— Friar Wagner

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SLAUGHTER LORD, Taste of Blood (1986, demo)

The skull:
“Grrrrr!!! You get me down from this cross right…this…minute!!! God damn you kids! I did not ask for this! What??? … I don’t care if it’s upside down! GRRRRRR… Come back here you rapscallions! What’s that??? This is King Diamond’s microphone holder? Well I still don’t give a shit! I’ve got a pie in the oven! God damn you kids!!! Get back here right now. GRRRRR…………”

The music:
I’ve tried to get into Slaughter Lord several times. They’re at least semi-legendary, Australia’s answer to the most vicious phases of Kreator, Slayer, Sodom and Canada’s Slaughter. But their music leaves me cold. And the guitar solo in “Die by Power” is dippy. Guess there’s a fine line between stupid and awesome Exodus-ish dive-bombing whammy bar destruction solos after all. Oh hell yeah, it’s cult…but how good is it really? I don’t get much out of return visits either. I’ve tried. Kinda the same feeling I have with Canada’s Slaughter – tons of respect, but a sense that both bands are slightly overrated.
— Friar Wagner

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EUREKA, Eureka (1992, demo)

The skull:
This fella looks like he just did something he knows he shouldn’t have. His look tells us he feels guilty on one hand and kinda proud on the other. Of course, not having hands makes that merely an awkward figure of speech. Dude’ll just have to come to terms with his rash act while the rest of us turn away and go about our own business. He walks in the front door (or floats through the window?), averting his gaze from mom and the rolling pin. Chump’s gonna be grounded forever.

The music:
Man, this is rough. The prospect of a straight-up heavy metal demo from Sweden circa 1992 is an interesting one, but the actual thing isn’t as good as I’d imagined it to be. It’s speedy and chock full of energy, and all the playing is decent, but the riffs are weak and the shouted, drunken, just-barely-melodic vocals let it all down. It sounds like some of those lesser Oz albums (basically every Oz album except for the awesome Fire in the Brain), or what I imagine early uncirculated Rosicrucian demos might sound like…or rehearsal tapes by the first Swedish Tribulation, the thrashy one. This isn’t straight up thrash, and actually is a great example of the distinction between speed metal and thrash. All four songs just lay on the gas pedal and go for broke. It’s Raven-esque in its fastness, and I’ll bet these guys worship that first Jaguar album. Well, worshipped…who knows where they are now or how committed they still are to the sort of music that appears on this demo. All except drummer Tobias Gustafsson, who has made a name for himself playing in considerably more death-obsessed acts such as God Macabre, Torture Division, The Project Hate XCLMIRLXLKMRKKIIX (or whatever), and Vomitory. As for this stuff, it’s not very memorable, and grade school recess topics that give name to such songs as “Dogshit” and “Male Hooker” pretty much seal the deal: I’ve already forgotten about this demo.
— Friar Wagner

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DEMONICAL, Darkness Unbound (2013, Cyclone Empire)

The skull:
Another of the more densely-populated Subdivisions of the Big Dumb Skull Cover, the Screaming Skull is, more often than not, a cartoony guy. But not this guy. This is one tormented dome of bone. His wretched grimace conjures fear, misery, despair, doom and all the other fun stuff once can associate with meeting one’s end. But what’s with the doohickey affixed to the skull’s top left side? Skeletal remains of a blowfly? A petrified feather? A JFK-ish shard of bone caught just as a bullet grazes the dome? Write down your top 100 guesses and mail it to Big Dumb Skulls, c/o The Council. Only entries written in the blood of a virgin on aged parchment paper will be accepted. One entry per person.

The music:
This skull cover is exclusive to those who bought the limited digipak edition, the one with the cover of Kreator’s “World Beyond.” Skulls are worth the extra effort, and cash, so we applaud this marketing decision. The cover version is pretty much what you’d expect a death-blasted, de-tuned death metal cover of a Kreator song to sound like (the guitar lead is killer, very much respectful of Frank Blackfire while severely out-intensifying him). The original is better, but that’s usually always the case. As for Demonical’s originals, these guys clearly have the patented Brutal Swedish Death Metal sound nailed down tight. With a couple guys from Centinex, you’d expect that. It’s just so incredibly straightforward and unvarying that it gets old fast. And I love this sound, but by 2013, even the brootal-Swede-death revival has lost its luster. We will always return to the first generation when we want the real deal. Unless it’s Tribulation or Morbus Chron or the like, bands actually moving the style forward in leaps (Tribulation) and extra-wide bounds (Morbus Chron). But yeah, I’ll take Toximia or Uncanny over Demonical any day, even if this is undeniably pro and superior in what it’s trying to accomplish.
— Friar Wagner

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FLOTSAM AND JETSAM, Metal Shock (1985, demo)

The skull:
Maybe I’m prejudiced against any comedy or mockery because I love the first several F&J albums so much (and I believe I can speak for the other BDS friar on that point, as well), but I always thought this skull design was completely killer. Dig the J stabbing its way through the chasms of the eyeholes, drawing blood to boot. The logo is one of the coolest and most stylish from the American thrash wave of the 1980s. Same can’t be said for the demo title font, which I swear I’ve seen used for “Live Wire” somewhere, whatever “Live Wire” is. I know I’ve seen it. And about a million other album and fanzine titles of the era. But yeah, the skull and logo? I’d wear a shirt with that on it.

The music:
Four songs here, only one of which appeared revamped on the next year’s debut, Doomsday for the Deceiver (“Hammerhead”). There is also, of course, “I Life You Die,” which appeared later, also revamped, on their perfect-expect-for-THAT-song second album. These versions are great — obviously rawer, but with a different guitar noodle here or a different Erik A.K. shriek there. Then we have “The Evil Sheik,” which boasts a variety of riffs that are all Armored Saint-meets-Omen, a few King Diamond-ish vocal moments, and an ending that is total Iron Maiden circa 1980. Overall it’s a good song, just not great enough to pass muster for the considerably speedier debut, and obviously the most derivative of any of the Jason Newsted-penned early Flots tunes. “The Beast Within,” now this is interesting. I always felt this song lacked something next to the other three, something that easily fit into a more traditional mold. It has that spandex-and-spikes vibe of the many bands of the era that had one foot in true heavy metal and the other in cock rock. I didn’t realize until today, in examining this skull and the music inside, that it’s actually a cover song. Weird choice too: a song from Stormtrooper’s EP, Armies of the Night (1985, Ironworks)Why? Was Jason Newsted out of ideas, or from Ironworks or Stormtrooper have some blackmail-worthy dirt on him? Incidentally, Stormtrooper featured guitarist Mick Sweda, who later went on to fame in King Kobra and then again in Bullet Boys. (No wonder I smelled hairspray.) I had to check out the original version, and it’s pretty killer, like a rougher, tougher early Ratt (and I love early Ratt). Very “early Metal Massacre comps” if you know what I mean. So, not a bad song, you just wonder why Newsted and Flotsam relied on it for their second demo. Weirdness.
— Friar Wagner

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DISARM GOLAITH, Man, Machine and Murder (2008, Casket)

The skull:
Man? We’ll take their word for it that this skull belonged to a male.

Check.

Machine? It’s sort of cyborg-y, this skull, and a fightin’ cyborg at that, judging by the bullet hole. So okay, a machine.

Check.

Murder? Do they really have to spell it out for us? This skull – which once carried the flesh and guts of a male member of the species – is a goddamn fightin’ machine, and if that red color behind him is to symbolize all the blood he’s bathing in after all that fightin’, then yeah, there’s a ton of murderin’ goin’ on in this cyborg skull’s warring world.

Check.

The music:
If Onslaught had kept Steve Grimmett on vocals and continued their evolution, kind of working backwards in the development of heavy metal’s sub-genre expansion, might have, in another album or two, arrived it a sound like the one claimed by Disarm Goliath, this kind of raucous yet classy, tough but melodic traditional heavy metal sound. Unfortunately D.G.’s Man, Machine and Murder EP is not recorded very well, and while the passion is clearly there, not even the most earnest delivery can help if the songs are mediocre, and these songs are mediocre without exception. The spirit is there though, so if your standards for traditional heavy metal aren’t sky-high when it comes to newer bands, then this will fit your craving for merely decent metal (I checked out another D.G. song, “Embrace the Abyss,” from their second album, which came out several years after this EP, and holy cow, it sounds a lot like Onslaught’s “Shellshock.” So there you go.)
— Friar Wagner

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SONIC REIGN, Monument in Black (2013, Apostasy)

The skull:
Technically this is a really excellent piece of artwork. It’s got a certain mood, and its realism is tilted just slightly into the realms of dark macabre vibes by the webby, shadowy slashes. But why? I mean, why? Why the fuck? There’s nothing happening here worth capturing in paint-on-canvas. And with band name and album title both so completely, underwhelming generic, you gotta wonder if a decent hired artist (or stolen piece of artwork from a coffee table book) is all this German band is able to muster.

The music:
Well, it’s boring. So much like the artwork it’s not funny. The guys can play well and they bring along with them a certain creepy atmosphere that’s made clear by the precision playing and modern recording. It’s basically like dull, middle-era Satyricon (Now, Diabolical; Volcano). It’s rendered very well but the actual ideas are shallow. There’s just not much to bite into here. Like the dull gray skull on the cover; like the band name that’s devoid of any real thought; like the retread, heard-it-already-a-thousand-times album title…it’s all so incredibly amazingly barely exciting.
— Friar Wagner

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SZRON, Death Camp Earth (2012, Under the Sign of Garazel Productions)

The skull:
Swear we’ve seen this before. But that’s probably skull fatigue talking. And really, after you’ve recently studied skulls smoking cigarettes while wearing headphones; skulls wearing ridiculous Egyptian headdresses drawn in black crayon by children; and skulls hatching human heads that are puking black blood…well, this skull is bound to lack impact. A less jaded skull aficionado would surely find this skull fearsome, its sight partially obscured by barbed wire wrap and a common runic character stamped onto its forehead, but after those other recent beauties this is like a trip to the frozen yogurt shop on the corner, where the spicy mango flavor pales next to the banana garlic, seaweed bacon and bubblegum catsup ones.

The music:
At times these Polish black metallers favor the wide-expanse, hugely majestic, all-six-strings kinds of chords that remind of those great early Borknagar records. When they’re not going all epic, though, it’s extremely orthodox modern black metal – seething in the right spots, vocals vile enough to fit the bill, shades of darkness black enough to conjure melancholy ‘n’ might…and boring as hell. I doubt any but the most insatiable black metal gourmand needs to sit down and dig in. Long songs, too: four of them in nearly 40 minutes. Please note that Metal Archives says this band’s lyrical topics touch upon “Anti-Humanity, Anti-Christianity, Death, Evil.” Fresh new ground for a black metal band, basically.
— Friar Wagner

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DERANGED, Premonotory Nightmare (1988, demo)

The skull:
He wakes up in a sweat and rolls over to embrace his wife. He is shaking and clearly disturbed.

He: Baby, I had the scariest dream. It was a premonotory nightmare.

She: Oh, babe, don’t you mean “premonitory”?

He: Yeah, that’s what I said.

She: No, you said “pre-mon-OH-tory.” It’s “pre-mon-IH-tory”

He: Whatever. You’re the English teacher. Anyway…There I was, inside this dome of bone, trapped and desperate to escape. I pounded and pounded at this bone-dome —

She: Hee-hee!

He: I know. Anyway, I finally crack through this dome to find I was trapped inside of a skull! It was so weird! And by the time I emerged I was pretty much dead, one of my eyes was dangling out of its socket and I was vomiting blood! Ohhh, baby, it was AWFUL!!!

She: Sounds really scary, babe. But what’s so premonitory about it?

He: [fuming now] Never mind…

The music:
Not to belabor the theme too much, but I’m guessing the guys in Canada’s Deranged weren’t the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, know what I’m sayin’? As far as I have read, and even observed first-hand, Vancouver, B.C. is comprised mostly of straight-up English-speaking denizens (and lots of Asians, but these guys look caucasian). So, with the misspelling in the cassette title, and the song title “Different Executioning,” you gotta wonder if any member of this five-piece band owned so much as one single dictionary among them, or made it past the 6th grade? But hey, let’s give ‘em some slack and get into the meat of the music. What we have here is some incredibly raw and vicious thrash metal that reminds a lot of early Sadus (D.T.P. demo, Illusions), Pleasure to Kill-era Kreator, Gammacide’s Victims of Science, and Morbid Saint’s Spectrum of Death. With the later receiving enough posthumous acclaim that the band reunited, you hope that eventually this demo and and the next one, 1989’s Place of Torment (which is even better and more intense than this), would find a proper reissue and repackaging. I would totally buy it. The riffs are good, some are even unique enough as to be memorable, the energy is very high, the playing is pro, and Scott Murdoch’s vocals are absolutely maniacal. They may have performed poorly in English class, but they were experts in the ways of ultra-intense thrash metal, and for that, I give them a solid A grade.
— Friar Wagner

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TARANTULAH, Promo Version (2012, self-released)

The skull:
It was the final selfie ol’ Spider took of his bad-ass self. He drifted off to sleep listening to some shitty grind core demo tape. The cig he was enjoying fell out of his teeth and burnt the entire place to the ground. Falling asleep while smoking is bad enough, but having no lips with which to create a vaccum-tight seal around the filter? Certain death. At least he was able to treat the selfie with a cool “film negative” effect before texting it to his buddies in Tarantulah. This is their tribute to him.

The music:
I’ve never heard Malaysian grindcore before, but after sitting through this mercifully short two-song release, I never, ever, ever want to hear Malaysian grindcore again. A sloppy, shambling, shitty, pointless mess. Who needs it? If you do, check this out, or their contributions to the deliciously-titled Chaotic of Psycho Golden Triangle split.
— Friar Wagner