Author Archives: Friar Johnsen

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NARROW MIND, Lady Moonlight (2011, demo)

The skull:
The complete and total ugliness of this cover is impossible to deny. The skull (goofy eyes and all) appears to have been drawn in MS-Paint, and the title appears to be set in Comic Sans! The logo, meanwhile, is the sort of shiny 3D junk that was very common in the early/mid 90s when consumer-level modelling software started to become available. The whole affair seems to have been calculatedly crafted to cultivate the appearance of amateurishness, perhaps in some grand ironic display. And while I’m generally of a like mind with DEP on the subject of irony and the deadness of its scene, I admit that if this were in fact the intention of Narrow Mind, I’d have to applaud their dedication to the vision. But, as even a cursory listen will demonstrate, what we have here is not irony but idiocy.

The music:
These guys placed fourth in their high school battle of the bands in Zurich, which maybe doesn’t sound so bad, until you learn that only five bands entered the contest, and the fifth was obviously some kind of joke staged by that one weird kid who plays the accordian. Narrow Mind are generic enough that the best label for them is probably just “heavy metal” but this especially reminds me of the absolute worst indie European power metal of the mid 90s, bands I’d encounter only as singleton tracks somehow tacked on to fill in the extra time at the end of a blank 90 minute cassette, by a trader who thought, “Well, if he’s interested in the German Avalanche, he might like this as well.” And then, of course, I’d quickly discover that I didn’t actually like Avalanche, let alone the shitty filler band. And that band, still, would have been better than Narrow Mind. Bad playing, bad singing, bad songs. Just, bad
— Friar Johnsen

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FILTHEATER/ISHIMURA,Rites of Contempt and Disgust (2011, Speed Ritual)

The skull:
This is at least the third time we’ve seen a skull by this artist. He also did SKULL143 and SKULL396, and this one is every bit as good as those. I love the detailed linework that somehow conveys real hopelessness and despair. No mean feat! The pile of handmeat is of course great (especially how the fingers suggest spider legs), but for me, the real clincher to this piece is the half-closed third eye. That eye is so jaded that no depravity is sufficiently titilating anymore, and I daresay that heavy-lidded ennui is perfectly suited to this particular collection of songs.

The music:
Filtheater scored a surprisingly good review from Friar Wagner when they last appeared in the Skullection, but an unconditional love for Nuclear Death is not a prerequisite in aspiring Friars, so while I owned Bride of Insect as a young man, and appreciated it for its shock value (which is still strong, I must admit), I never really liked their music, nor of course their sub-basement production values. And honestly, I don’t recall much about them, so I’m taking it on faith that Filtheater bear some similarity. I guess I can get behind the more angular and weird riffs on display here, but the blasty bits are a sloppy mess and the songs overall don’t seem to have any overarching raison d’etre. Grimy grindcore for horror crusties. And Ishimura is way, way fucking worse. Their drummer, when he blasts, seems to have no control over himself, and as such ends up seemingly out of time with the rest of the band, although maybe that’s by design. And for as shitty as Filtheater’s distorted growls are, the vocals on Ishimura’s half of this split are infinitely shittier. It’s also not clear to me that either band has a bass player, so thin and reedy is the sound on both halves. Friar Wagner can keep this stuff. What I need is some crappy 80s power metal. That’ll sort me out.
— Friar Johnsen

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AS I LAY DYING, Decas (2011, Metal Blade)

The skull:
I bet the young metalheads fresh out of art school feel like they’ve landed the perfect job when they’re hired into the design department at Metal Blade Records. And maybe one of them, on learning that he would be doing the cover for As I Lay Dying’s latest release, pitched some elaborate collage piece inspired by Boccaccio’s Decameron before Brian Slagel came in and swatted the stylus out of his Cintas hand and yelled, “What are you fucking talking about, nerd? This is just some bullshit compilation, and we’re already losing like 24 cents per on mechanicals. Pull a fucking skull from the junk box, photocopy it a couple dozen times, and put the fucking title on it. This isn’t the god damned Louvre and you ain’t Andy shitloving Warhol. And don’t EVEN come back asking to expense some fucking font. Go to one of those Russian sites and get one for free and quit bothering the grown ups! Jesus, don’t they teach you idiots anything in school, or do you spend all day drawing your mommies with crayons?”

The music:
Remember how, the last time I discussed As I Lay Dying, I said, ” I can also kind of appreciate in retrospect is the looseness of the entire album; the drums are clearly not quantized or triggered, and Lambesis had to more or less get his shit in tune before the mass adoption of Autotune, which lends the entire affair an almost organic feel”? Well, in the 8 years separating that album from this one, the band ceded 100% of that organic feel. The clean vocals are mercilessly tuned (“From Shapeless To Breakable” is a master class in unnatural autotuning), the drums sampled and time-aligned, and all the tones compressed into a narrow band centered on the chug note of whatever their low string is. Which is just to say, there is literally no way to tell As I Lay Dying from the thousands of other metalcore bands that labored night and day to completely ruin metal in the aughts. This disc is not an all new collection of tunes, though: it’s a contract-fulfilling way for the band to cut loose and show us how oldschool and really metal they are, by covering past-their-prime Slayer tunes (“War Ensemble”), done-to-death Judas Priest tunes (“Hellion/Electic Eye”) and the obligatory “check out how how diverse and cool our tastes are” tunes (“Coffee Mug,” by Descendents). Also: a dubstep remix. For fucking real. This is the perfect music for a cover so haphazardly thrown together, the ultimate expression of “pointless.”
— Friar Johnsen

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CARCARIASS, Killing Process (2002, Adipocere)

The skull:
Here is a clear case of a band having a vision for their album cover firmly in mind before they found the actual illustration. “We’ll call it Killing Process and put up some computery fonts and shit and it’ll be like Killing Technology and the Terminator all wrapped up in one, mes amis,” someone in the band probably said (in a haughty French accent, but not in French, for some reason), and everyone agreed that was an awesome idea, but then their artist friend showed up at the rehearsal space with a canvas, saying, “Here it is! Here is your cover!” and presented an admittedly badass skull. And then they were torn, because they all loved the futuristic dystopia angle, but they also thought the skull was totally manly and awesome, and heated discussions were had until the bassist suggested that they just merge the two concepts. “Like, maybe the computer robot guy shot a laser at this dude and fried off all his flesh and left a big hole in his head? We could have some numbers or something from the Terminator’s heads-up display on the side, like this is just some program he runs all the time, like his killing program,” and everyone stopped fighting and broke open a bottle of wine and rejoiced at the brilliance of this plan, which saved the skull AND the band.

The music:
This is one of the very, VERY few albums in the Skullection (particularly this deep) that this friar owns, but while I have long appreciated this standout slab of French melodic death metal, The Council prefers its Frankish metal to be the work of a lone, bearded, black metal loser in his bedroom, and as such must have overlooked this excellent release. How else can we explain its late position in the Skullection? Perhaps The Council’s thoughts on the matter were influenced by the rather low quality of Carcariass’s other releases, which are uniformly less good than this standout album. Killing Process is a mix of light melodic death metal (think Arch Enemy at the turn of the millennium), latter-day Death, and more complex fare, although it never rises to the level of, say, Theory In Practice for technical content. Compared to the particular strain of tech death that has arisen since the release of Necrophagist’s Epitaph, Killing Process might seem tame, but where it lacks in balls-to-the-wall displays of instrumental proficiency ( or for that matter, labored brutality), it compensates with generally memorable riff- and song-writing. The production is tight and clean, and although I’m fairly certain the drums are programmed (this despite a credit for a human drummer), the work is sufficiently well-done that I’m not bothered in the main by the artificiality of the percussion. The entire affair is undergird with that uniquely French weirdness that animates pretty much everything on labels like Adipocere and Holy. This is a no-brainer purchase for anyone with a predilection for left-of-center death metal.
— Friar Johnsen

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RYCHUS SYN, The Rebirth (2008, Photon)

The skull:
This bit of stonework depicts a frightening vampire skull in the middle of a salad binge. He’s totally going to town on those baby bok choy, and there’s a mound of spinach under his chin that he’s about to devour. This guy is so consumed with veglust that leafy greens appear (demonically) to be sprouting from his face. It makes sense, really: a diet so heavy in blood (particularly that of your average American, thick as it is with cholesterol and saturated fats) would probably condemn you to an eternity on the toilet if you didn’t supplement your sanguinary intake with an extraordinary amount of roughage. You never hear about this side of vampires, but this is exactly why I never go to night-time farmers markets. You’re just asking for it at those. If you have to go, stick close to that bearded guy with the table full of organic heirloom garlic.

The music:
Rychus Syn were one of hundreds of small time bands who pressed an EP on wax in the 80s only to vanish immediately, and as was often the case, that EP was released on Azra Records, who were pretty much a clearing house for bands about to die. Now, it could hardly be said that the world was clamoring for a Rychus Syn reunion, but I guess some of the guys kept in touch and nearly 20 years after the release of their debut EP, they reconvened to record this comeback disc. Honestly, it’s not terrible, but it’s not exactly essential. I’m reminded of a lot of 4th tier melodic metal bands from the 80s, but to give you a sense of scale, here are some similar bands who were quite a bit better than Rychus Syn: Steel Assassin, Gargoyle, Saint, Tyrant, etc. You get the point. I can’t be certain (because I don’t have the lyrics and I can’t be bothered to figure them out), but this definitely has the feel of Christian metal, and the name (which I assume is meant to be pronounced like “Righteous Sin”) suggests the same, and I can easily imagine this coming out in 1993 on Rex. But, this is well played and well sung, and while the songs tends to inhabit a pretty narrow range of tempos (which consigns them to a certain saminess), if you’re a serious lover of American power metal, then this might be of minor interest to you. I certainly have lesser crap in my collection.
— Friar Johnsen

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MUSTASCH, Sounds Like Hell, Looks Like Heaven (2012, Gain Music Entertainment)

The skull:
This guy is a lot closer to a Victoria’s Secret angel than to Charlie, the uber winged skull (übergeflügeltotenkopf?) of heavy metal. It would have helped if the minimum-wage Photoshopist had made an effort to align the wings and skull in something resembling a plane; as it is it looks like one wing sprouts from behind the skull’s left “ear” and the other tangentially from the back of his head. Makes no sense. Plus, everyone knows that if you’re gonna outfit a skull with wings, they had best be bat wings, or failing that, at least something that looks eagle-like. These recall the poofy appendages of a cockatiel. Unacceptable!

The music:
I first became aware of Mustasch when they were subbed in for Volbeat at a festival, and I have to admit, the swap was apt. Both bands traffic in self-conscious “rock,” the kind that must announce at all times and in the most ironic tones just how hard it indeed “rocks.” Mustasch don’t do the Elvis/Danzig worship thing that more or less defines Volbeat’s gimmick, instead sounding like a cross between Monster Magnet and mid 90s Swedish death rock, enhanced with up to 8% by weight of a solution of The Cult, played with the impeccable polish and sheen you’d expect from Swedes who aren’t going out of their way to sound unpolished. It’s even catchy in places. It’s also infuriatingly needy, the work of a band trying very hard to sound like real ass-kickers, so oh please won’t you consent to an ass-kicking please? Lord knows, I don’t require danger in my heavy metal (I love Arwen, after all), but I do thoroughly detest artfully-composed faux danger, and that’s all you’ll get from Mustasch, cowbells and all. Sounds like posers, looks like hipsters.
— Friar Johnsen

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VENEMOUS CONCEPT, Retroactive Abortion (2004, Ipecac)

The skull:
“Hey dudes, check out my awesome collage art. I made it from a bunch of 60s Life magazines I found at my grandma’s house, and I think it really makes a statement about war and shit. Yeah, that old bitch is just some cog in the Republican, mainstream meachine, so I didn’t feel bad stealing her old shit, or also this bottle of creme de menthe, so let’s get fucking wasted and listen to Poison Idea!”

The music:
Venemous Concept are a grindcore project from Kevin Sharp, Shane Embury, Danny Herrara, and Buzz Osbourne, and they sound 100% exactly like you’d imagine they’d sound. Actually, they sound 100% exactly like you’d imagine they’d sound just from looking at the cover art. Grindcore is nothing if not predictable. Also, Dan Lilker joined after this album. Like I said: predictable.
— Friar Johnsen

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RUNNING WILD, First Years of Piracy (1991, Noise)

The skull:
At first I thought, “Oh, come on. By the time the scalp and hair rotted away, that bandana would be MUCH looser around the skull’s dome…” before I started to wonder if maybe this guy wasn’t in fact killed by an overtight bandana. Think about it, you’re on the open seas, the wind in your face, and your stupid mandatory headgear is constantly blowing off. So, you tie it on really fucking tight, so tight that not even gale force winds could knock it off, and the next thing you know, you’re dying of gangrene because you cut off the circulation to the top of your noggin. Sounds pretty fucking stupid, until you hear that this guy lost an eye trying to balance a rapier on his nose. Kids: don’t make bets when you’re getting double rum rations.

The music:
Generally speaking, it never pays to re-record old songs. For one, there’s always a certain spark that’s lost with the benefit of hindsight, an ineffable youthful energy that’s nearly impossible to summon at will years later. But more than that, by the time an band has accumulated sufficient fans and marketplace goodwill to get away with a release like this, the band is usually well past its prime. But Running Wild were near the top of their game in 1991 when they decided to revive these tunes from their first three albums. Rolf and company released one of their best original albums in the same year, Blazon Stone and were only a couple years from the creative peak of Death or Glory. So, it can’t be said that the band were on the wrong side of the curve when they undertook this project. But then, it can’t really be said that those first three albums were really so raw and underproduced that they needed to be revisited this way. I just recently listened to Gates of Purgatory and was impressed anew at just how tight the band was. Sure, Rolf’s voice hadn’t quite hit its stride, but the playing and production were otherwise just fine. The most shocking thing about that very first Running Wild album is how thrashy it sounds in retrospect; it has a lot more in common with Bathory than probably most people would think. Then again, Rolf’s did improve immensely in those seven crucial years, so for sure he sounds better on “Prisoner of Our Time” and “Soldiers in Hell”. There’s less of an improvement, though, for the tunes from Under Jolly Roger, which was actually only four years old at that point. That fact alone reminds me of how fast-paced the early metal scene was. Nowadays, a band re-recording a four year old song might be doing it on the very next album from the original! But, I digress. First Years of Piracy is inessential, but it’s also quite good and serves as an excellent best-of from the early days of the band, and probably served the intended function of defining the canonical early tunes that one could expect at a Running Wild show in the early 90s, but owning this will only make you want the original albums the more, and if you have them already, are you really going to spend much time with the rerecorded versions? Unless you derive some perverse titilation in the disgusting triggered snare sound that was the Running Wild calling card in 1991, then probably not.
— Friar Johnsen

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AGATHOCLES,Trail of Despair(2011, Selfmadegod)

The skull:
Heavy metal cover art is rarely allegorical, but I think a close reading of this piece is illustrative. You see, the syringe represents the MMR vaccination, and the skull represents autism, and the four logos represent what the fuck is wrong with you fucking people who don’t vaccinate your fucking children? I don’t care if Jesus and Jenny McCarthy came to you in a dream; if you don’t vaccinate your kids you deserve to be punched hard in the crotch by carnies. Pretty deep stuff, really.

The music:
For as long as I’ve known about Agathocles, and that’s been nearly as long as they’ve been releasing music, I’ve wanted desperately to like them, because their name is immensely cool. I still don’t know who or what “Agathocles” is, but I still love the sound of it. But, sadly, it has never been possible for me to get into this band, because they are terrible. They were terrible 20 years ago, and they haven’t gotten better. They’re the kind of band that releases 27 split 7″s a year, and every song sounds like the sloppy, first-pass rehearsal room demo of a song Napalm Death eventually ditched for being too shitty. Actually, I’m kidding. They only released 14 splits in 2011. This particular platter is backed by tracks from Nuns Laughter, another BDS alumnus, and both sides together come in under 10 minutes, so at least my suffering was short (especially since I didn’t bother listening to the Nunslaughter, although they were almost certainly better than the Agathocles ones.) Someday I’d like to meet someone who listens to this sort of thing, so I could try to get to the bottom of the phenomenon. People like all manner of awful music for perfectly valid (if usually nonmusical) reasons, and I’m sure there’s a compelling argument to be made for the ongoing existence of this band, but I sure as hell can’t fathom it on my own.
— Friar Johnsen

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NIHILIST, demo 1990 (1990, demo)

The skull:
Sometimes, two crossbones are not enough. In fact, sometimes, enough is never enough, as you can see here. It looks like whenever the artist was about to be finished, he decided to add something else, be it a bandana, some pirate runes, a stick of dynamite (?), or whatever that squiggly shit in the lower left is. It more or less works, but only because all the junk is added to the periphery of this fine piratical skull. He does seem to have something in his mouth, but at this low resolution, I’m having trouble making it out. Is it a clock? Is it an eyeball? Only Nihilist knows, and they just don’t care enough to make shit clear. Say what you will about the tenets of NSBM, but at least it’s an ethos.

The music:
If you couldn’t already tell from the logo, this is not the Swedish Nihilist, the band that spawned both Entombed and Unleashed. Instead, this is a thrash band from Georgia (the U.S. state, not the country!) I couldn’t locate this actual demo, but I was able to sample some other Nihilist tunes, and I must say, they seem to have been a pretty good band. They were fairly groovy for thrash, reminding me a little of what White Zombie would do, musically, on their lone good disc, La Sexorcisto, even if Nihilist aren’t animated by the same campy fun. This demo was even recorded by Scott Burns, so it probably sounded great. For a demo-level band, Nihilist were incredibly polished and impeccably tight, and while plenty of good bands somehow slipped through the cracks back in the golden days, I’m definitely surprised that no one has given this band the deluxe reissue treatment. This stuff is screaming for a Stormspell or Divebomb compilation to collect all of their demos. Get on it, intrepid reissuers!
— Friar Johnsen