Author Archives: Friar Wagner

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RETALIATOR, Comando das Trevas (2005, demo)

The skull:
Quickly hand-drawn in black crayon, cut out and pasted onto black construction paper, the Retaliator skull is not at all happy about this. Nor is he pleased with the Egyptian headdress he was forced to wear. It’s very uncomfortable. And so hot. He’s sweating underneath it, which is remarkable considering his lack of skin and pores. He was promised to be the central figure on a cover “that would rival the Egyptian majesty of Powerslave!!!” Clearly, this was an empty promise. It’s no wonder his expression is all “good grief…” We hear ya, buddy. We’ll use our connections in the skull world to find you an agent who can maybe secure a better gig for you, maybe with Krokus, or maybe if Crossfire reunites…we’ll do what we can, man. We feel for you.

The music:
Also known as Retaliador, these Brazilians wear Angel Witch, Hellhammer and Possessed shirts, and are exactly that old-school in their own musical approach. They sound very Brazilian, and very 1985, and they rip ass pretty well, sounding like early Destruction in both riffing and production style. It’s like an alternate-world version of the Sentence of Death EP, although some of the attempted melodic vocals would have never come from Schmier’s throat. In fact, there’s a decidedly Sarcofago-ish bent to the vocals, which means they sound completely untrained, unchained, and insane. The other reference point would be, surprise surprise, Sodom! And lo and behold…It’s not like we needed another cover of Sodom’s “Blasphemer,” but Retaliator have delivered one anyway. Yes, we’ve heard all of this before, and this is basically useless and pointless, but hey, if you dig the earliest crud by Destruction, Sodom, and Sarcofago (and I say “crud” with great affection, because I’m one of those), then this is worth one spin. But probably only one.
— Friar Wagner

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NILS COURBARON’S PROJECT, Madness Leads to Death (2012, self-released)

The skull:
This is just too easy. It’s self-explanatory, really. You put an elaborate jester’s cap like this on a skull and our work is pretty much done for us. I mean, if you look closely, the thing even has a chinstrap to keep it from slipping off the skull. How awesome is that? I had no idea jester caps had chin straps! And, as if the headgear wasn’t adornment enough, this dude’s got a bunch of tattoos (probably Henna) and a damn Ninja throwing star glued to his forehead. Do we have to explain with any level of detail why this is fucking hilariously stupid and stupidly hilarious? Didn’t think so.

The music:
Just in case you were wondering, this is Nils Courbaron’s project. It’s described on Metal Archives as “Symphonic Technical Death Metal,” but somebody is clearly smoking crack, because how can something be death metal if it’s instrumental? I have never had to ponder that one in all my years of trudging through the metal trenches. I suppose if this sounded like a karaoke-ready version of Dismember’s Pieces EP, the answer would be clear enough, but this EP sounds more like a karaoke-ready version of Sonata Arctica-meets-Yngwie Malmsteen. (“Bag er Maru” sounds like freakin’ Don Cortes Maya – who is, no joke, really awesome.) Symphonic, yes. Technical? Technically, yes. Death metal? Errr….yeah, right. It’s okay, but that’s really just a nice way of saying Nils plays extremely well but the songs are boring as fuck.

***As an exclusive bonus for you loyal Big Dumb Skulls readers, here’s a transcription from Nils Courbaron’s recent appearance at Wacken Open Air. If this doesn’t make your hair stand on end with electrifying excitement, you’re already dead:

Nils to the thousands:
“Whose project is this?”

The throngs:
“Nils Courbarons!”

Nils:
“C’mon, you can do better ‘n that. I sayyy-ed…WHOSE PROJECT IS THIS?!?!?!”

The throngs:
“Nils Courbarons!!!!!!”

Nils:
“Pretty good, but not quite…give it to me one more time, this time with a possessive apostrophe! I SAID: WHOSE PROJECT IS THIS?????????????!!!!!!!!!????????????”

The throngs:
“NILS COURBARON’S!!!!!!”

Nils:
“You finally got that riiiiiight!!! This one’s called ‘Dying for Glorrrryyyyyy’!!!!!”

[the throngs go apeshit and the Project – Nils Courbaron’s Project – plays on through the night…]

— Friar Wagner

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MASOCHIST, The Extent of Human Error (2012, UKEM)

The skull:
I think I know what’s going on here. Try and stay with me on this. This guy was down in the Upper Big Branch Mine in Birchton, WV, when an explosion occurred (the same explosion depicted in Skull616). The flashlight on this unfortunate miner’s helmet fused to his recently de-fleshed skull in the wake of the explosion. The hand we see here does not belong to the skull, or at least, it’s not attached to a body any longer. There it hangs, grafted onto a bloodied rock slab. This is all very disturbing, and we Friars stand with the Council of the Elders of the Skull in stating that “Mining disasters are not funny, even if skull covers are often hilarious.” We admit being conflicted on how to feel about this one.

The music:
This EP is sooooo 1994. It’s got that post-peak vibe to it, that peculiar sound of decent, capable death metal bands who have learned their lessons well and bring a laudable vibe of death, doom and darkness to bear in their own brand of death metal while putting nothing forth that hasn’t come before. They go slightly weird for about three measures of “Crucify the Whore” with some jarring, industrial noises, and they give a nod to pig-grunt “rhee-rhee-rhee” vocal silliness on “Born Fucked,” but generally it’s straightforward grindy death. You can either consider this many, many, many years too late, or a throwback to that gray era of “what now?” just beyond death metal’s peak years (1988-1993). Either way it’s a no-win, making it difficult to endorse this band unless you treasure those mid ‘90s albums by Killing Addiction, Internal Bleeding and Desecration (UK) as the very acme of the death metal art.
— Friar Wagner

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MACTEP (aka MASTER), Talk of the Devil (1992, Moroz)

The skull:
You know how chicks are seen in television shows and countless commercials holding a coffee cup with two hands as if they’re little kids whose dainty hands couldn’t possibly hold the cup by the handle like a proper adult? What is that? Is there a word or phrase for it? Has anyone ever been annoyed by this before? This skull cover reminds me exactly of that. Drink deep from the skull of good and evil, gals. Drink from the eye sockets and nose hole. Drink deep. Heaven or hell…pick your poison. Lesbian devil, cover girl angel — and one hand you’d never want to hold in the movie theater. Drink deep, you babes of metal. And it’s okay if you’re holding it like that … this mug doesn’t come with a handle.

The music:
If The Laws of Scourge-era Sarcofago covered Iron Angel’s Hellish Crossfire with a mealy-mouthed but well-meaning mini-Martin Walkyier-meets-Tom Angelripper wannabe on vocals, it might sound something like Talk of the Devil. Whether or not that’s too derivative or third-tier for you depends on how much originality you demand. This band is Russian (and are still active), so the fact this sounds very “1986” even if it was recorded half a decade later, well, that’s okay…stuff seeped out of Europe much slower in those pre-Internet days. And it’s still not as bad as any given British thrash album circa 1992. There’s not much here that hasn’t been done better by others (like, uh, Sarcofago, Iron Angel, Sabbat and Sodom), but there are some decent moments to grab hold of, such as the seething “Fallen Angel,” and “Live to Die” is easy to like, with its wealth of rifferifically rifftastic riffs. The cover of “Paranoid,” however, could never impress, since 1) the original is fine enough already, 2) it’s been covered to death a la “Smoke in the Water” and 3) Type O Negative’s version is so good that it shut the door on anyone else hoping to cover it. So there.
— Friar Wagner

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DECLAMATORY, Mental Explosion (2003, demo)

The skull:
This is quite the action shot! A skull swept up in mid-explosion. Wow! It’s very exciting, isn’t it? We can’t be certain if this is a skull made from and because of the explosion, or if it was a skull already buried in the ground recently blasted to shit by a mining company in the mountains of West Virginia, or something like that. Whatever the case may be, the cover artist seemed only talented enough to convey the “explosion” part of the album title. “Mental”? This looks more like a physical explosion, if we’re splitting hairs. The artist didn’t try hard enough to get that “mental” part going. But hey, one look at this baby and you know the band were stoked enough to float it as a demo cover. “Good enough,” they said, with something approaching enthusiasm. I wonder if the music will convey similar half-assedness? We’ve seen that happen a time or two here at Big Dumb Skulls.

The music:
Well, no luck finding the music of this one, likely because it’s an earlier demo by a German band who have been pumping out demos the way Warsteiner pumps out beer. (Their fourth of five, in as many years, before they started releasing more official-ish self-released EPs and albums.) The later material is modern thrash leaning dangerously close to the metalcore precipice. Not very interesting. At all. As for Mental Explosion, it features a song called “Diary of a Swordsman,” and that falls into the “you learn something new every day” category … I wasn’t aware swordsmen kept diaries, were you? The song prior to that is called “Medial Disaster.” “Would you like that disaster in small, medium, or large?” “Medium, please.” I know it’s unkind to pick on a band who aren’t native English speakers, but lacking the actual music, it’s easy to do, and fun too! You should try it some time.
— Friar Wagner

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ANGELCRUSHER, Under the Iron Graves  (2011, self-released)

The skull:
Under the iron logo, we could believe that one, right? But I don’t see any sign of an iron grave, and not sure what an iron grave even is. Do they mean casket, or vault? Perhaps “graves” is pronounced grah’-vez and means “vault” in the indigenous tongue of Mapudungun spoken in certain parts of Chile. Then it would totally make sense. Wouldn’t explain the skull at all, most especially its wild horns, but holy god those are some sweet horns.

The music:
Dirty black/thrash inspired by the earliest works of Sodom, Vulcano, Bathory and Sarcofago, one would guess. And really not amongst the most remarkable of the more recent followers in that vein (there really aren’t any leaders in that new-school of the old-school vein, are there)? This forgettable little nugget o’ metal is short,  raw, and originally came out on cassette.
— Friar Wagner

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LOTRIFY, Demo  (2011, demo)

The skull:
Demo. This is the album cover for this demo, the Lotrify demo. The one called Demo. The one with the skull on it. The one in which the skull cries tears of blood because he’s been relegated to a demo called Demo. From a Swiss band nobody really cares about. But he’s got a massive fucking canine and he’s gonna bite down on that logo for all its worth, to show his fellow skull pals, the ones from the Krokus, Overkill and Saint Vitus covers, that he, too, is to be feared!!!

The music:
Demo. This is music from the demo, the Lotrify demo. The one called Demo. And not only does it sounds like a demo, but the composition and delivery is clearly coming from kids who have just started trying to figure out how to write a song. They’re probably influenced by Metallica, Megadeth, Evergrey and Sanctuary, from the sound of it. They clearly have a long way to go before they can match the achievements of those bands, but they’re clearly capable, from a pure performance level, except for the vocalist. Each instrument-wielder seems pretty capable, the drums and bass sometimes outclassing the occasional ham-fisted guitar part, but for overall it’s a laudable effort. The vocalist, well, he’s pretty much crap. Not only does he warble weakly in his semi-melodic, semi-Hetfield-ian delivery, but the lyrics are laughable. And the songs themselves, these are not great, and are sometimes a hell of a mess (“Shadow of the Unknown”). And guess what “Sahara” does? It features mystical Eastern melodies. Bet you didn’t see that coming. The vocals in “Sahara” are amongst the poorest I’ve heard since starting this blog and these lyrics show that there is not even the slightest attempt at metaphor. This is what’s happening, right here! “I’m walking through Sahara without water in my bag /
The heat is smashing me down and my sight is turning red/ I trip over my own feet and my body hits the sandy floor.” But okay, they’re young. I’d say the cover of Demo advertises exactly what you get when the music starts playing. It’s time to get lotrified people! Lotrify it up! Omednikcufecin!
— Friar Wagner

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IGNIVOMOUS, Path of Attrition  (2007, Nuclear War Now! Productions)

The skull:
Although this cover is obscured in tarry black and sanguine rust red shades, one thing is clear: this skull is being used for some kind of nasty spell-casting. Or perhaps to help light up catacombs that reveal far grimmer things than we’re allowed to see on this cover. Or, hopefully, both. So we’ve got the book and candle, but no bell. We’ve come across this issue before, and we understand bell-makers the world over are feeling rather overlooked in the world of skull album covers, and are forming a committee to address the problem. Also, I’m pretty sure the book the skull is propped upon isn’t a first edition hardcover copy of Bridges of Madison County.

The music:
About as mired in filth, darkness and indistinct-but-probably-very-evil-things as the album cover itself, the music of Ignivomous is exactly what can be expected from various vets of the Australian death/black metal scene. Obvious inspiration comes from the rawer, earlier work of Incantation, Immolation, Rottrevore and even hints of Suffocation without the technicality. Heavy-as-fuck death metal, basically, with a decidedly dark orientation. This could have been released in 1990 on Relapse or Roadrunner and it would have fit right in.  They’re very good at their chosen craft, and if you can’t get enough of this kind of thing, there are about 200 less convincing death metal revivalists making the rounds right now. Ignivomous appear to be one of the best of this breed, for what it’s worth.
— Friar Wagner

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OLD WOUNDS, Terror Eyes  (2011, RDG)

The skull:
Assuming this skull is actual size, the serpent is immediately rendered unthreatening since it’s the size of a baby garden snake, and the candle would be kinda tiny too, stuck in the eye like that. Probably a cinnamon-scented joint straight outta Pier One. You’re gonna have to put a lot more terror into those eyes to freak us out here at BDS, and doubtless other curators/lovers of the skull will be left unimpressed. This ain’t nothin’.

The music:
Terror Eyes = Terrorize, eh? Clever. As hell. This is a 7” and it only sounds metal if you’re not very familiar with metal. The metal-or-not distinction is only relevant here because Big Dumb Skulls reviews metal albums with skulls on the cover. No punk, no rockabilly, no alt.country, or any other genre with an affection for the skull. But this is close enough to the kind of hipster Brooklyn-core pseudo-metal that’s all the rage these days, and even sounds like something Relapse might sign. Kind of Unsane meets Botch meets Trap Them, but in much more generic form. It churns and spits and rages appropriately, but that’s about all it does. There’s no underlying, existential purpose behind these five short songs, nothing that grabs you by the throat and screams anything important at you. It’s too dry and one-dimensional. Probably hugely inspirational to a young kid with very few reference points for what extreme music is like, but I’d be surprised if many old vets would find much of interest here.

— Friar Wagner