Author Archives: Friar Johnsen

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MONSTER MASH, He Gambled with Satan and Lost (2009, demo)

The skull:
It feels like it’s been a long time since we had a nice, simple, skull-on-a-table type cover, so today’s BDS is a comforting one indeed. I guess this guy wagered his teeth when he placed his bets with the devil. Or maybe it was, “If I win, you fix the teeth my ex knocked out with a hammer, and if I lose, then you can condemn my skull to an eternity on the cover of a South American thrash demo.” Either way, the title gives away the ending.

The music:
This is odd thrashy power metal with melodic high vocals that sound like a spit-take on James Rivera’s warble (although he sounds more like Kai Hansen when he does his weak falsetto scream). There’s actually another singer who is a dead ringer for this guy (or vice versa, I guess), but he’s so generic and without defining character that I can’t actually summon the name to memory. It’ll come to me one of these days. Maybe. Musically, I’m reminded in places of pre-Dark Saga Iced Earth, but of course Monster Mash are not as together as Shaffer’s troupe. The drumming is a mess, and a lot of times, it feels like the band is only barely on the same page. That said, for a band called Monster Mash, they’re not entirely bad, and with some practice they could possibly shape up into something rather decent. There’s certainly a shortage of bands like this, walking the fine line between speed and melody, and it’s always nice to hear a thrash band with a proper singer. That’s something that used to happen all the time, and now it’s exceedingly rare.
—Friar Johnsen

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MASSAKER, First Attack (2009, demo)

The skull:
It’s hard to tell if the drawing is just terrible, or if this weirdly squished skull is supposed to be a “gray,” those bug-eyed aliens always probing someone’s rectum. We’ll assume it’s just an ugly human, because how would a supersciency spaceman find himself in such dire, and utterly human, straits? Impaled on a cross and decorated with a bandolier, this guy has clearly run afoul of the same liturgical vigilantes that have stuck countless other skulls on crosses in the past. It’s a rotten way to go, I imagine.

The music:
Sloppy thrash from Brazilian youngsters, First Attack is not so much raw in the Dorsal Atlantica, “Thrash was just invented and we’re still trying to figure out how to do it” way but in the, “I’m at least as good on guitar as the guy on the first Dorsal Atlantic album, so how hard can making a thrash demo be?” way. Bad songs, bad playing (especially from the drummer), and infuriatingly shitty production are the three calling cards of Massaker, as this demo is their only release to date. This band is never going to get better, and on the off chance they do, they’ll want to distance themselves as much as they can from this stinker.
— Friar Johnsen

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TABES, Cadavera Tabes Absumebat (1999, self-released)

The skull:
The title translates to “The corpses were consumed by decay,” which seems somewhat redundant over a picture of a skull, but there you have it. Also, there’s the obvious disagreement in number, but that’s okay. We’d rather see one skull than many corpses, and this is a fine photo featuring some of the shoddiest Photoshop masking I’ve ever seen. Although, this being from 1999, it was probably from PaintShop Pro or one of the other free/shareware graphics editing packages of the day. Can you even imagine how long it would have taken to download a warez version of Photoshop on dial-up? Then again, maybe these young Frenchmen had an isdn connection at their school.

The music:
Amateur-hour death metal with a corny horrorshow vibe, Tabes was almost certainly these musicians’ first band. The playing is hilariously messy, and you can picture with total clarity the look of brow-furrowed concentration on the the faces of the guitarists as they struggle to (not exactly) nail their (not at all) challenging parts, and you can practically hear the drummer counting to himself as he gamely attempts to keep the train on the rails. Tabes are actually kind of charming in their high-school ineptitude, but god damn, this is some terrible shit. Makes me really glad my high school band left no recorded output!
— Friar Johnsen

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NAISSANT, Promo 1999 (1999, demo)

The skull:
Though he bears some similarities to SKULL148, this fellow’s horns are stubbier, less developed, nascent, you could say. But while Takashi’s metallic hornyskull looks to have been fashioned from modelling clay and silver spray paint, Naissant’s cover-adorning BDS is more likely an extreme close up of a chintzy skull ring, possibly obtained for the Greek equivalent of twenty-five cents from a vending machine at a supermarket in Athens. Bonus points are awarded for the drippy, Misfits-esque, best of 1987 horror font. It’s a classic for a reason.

The music:
Reputedly black metal, Naissant left almost no digital trace of this lone recording, released on cassette. Most of the members have gone on to other bands in the Greek scene, but poor ol’ Promo 1999 has thus far failed to inspire even a single upload. While I lament not being able to more fully report on this Big Dumb Skull, I can’t say I’m disappointed that I didn’t have to listen to what is most likely a terrible demo.
— Friar Johnsen

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SLEEPING WITH A CORPSE, Get Fucked (2008, demo)

The skull:
This looks like artschool fuckwad graffiti from some tenth rate Banksy wannabe, except for the logo, which looks like literally thousands of other shitty metalcore logos. The odd choice of spot colors is at least something different, and I applaud the bigness and dumbness of this skull, but that’s it. This could be the AIGA symbol for “Warning: Shitty Music”.

The music:
Man, I fucking hate this sort of guttural deathcore, with its bass drops and stupid slam mosh parts. Adding noodly tapping bits (as SWAC does) only makes it worse, because they’re executed so poorly and only underscore the moronic simplicity of the breakdown riffs. The song titles (like “Who Wrinkled My Randy Travis Poster” and “If You Don’t Chew Big Red Then Fuck You”) try to come off as funny, but this music is so powerfully, overwhelmingly, foundationally unamusing that the token attempts at humor only make me angrier. God damn this shitty fucking band. Depressingly, though this demo was recorded over 5 years ago and is the band’s sole release, they’re still around (or worse: back together) and working on a new demo. What a world, what a world.
— Friar Johnsen

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SHACKLES, Orgy of Corpses (2005, Beer In Your Ear)

The skull:
A skull with a toupée! Brilliant! Although his flesh is long since decayed, this guy’s polyester rug remains, and he’s become a hopping vermicular hangout. The only orgy happening here strictly involves hot worm-on-worm action, and look at those little nas-tay nematodes go! So many Big Dumb Skulls dwell to excess on the maudlin, but here’s a celebration of life and good times, if only for the wrigglier of God’s creations. Good on Shackles for believing the skull’s half-full.

The music:
With a cover and logo like this, you can be pretty sure that Shackles are gonna play throwback death/thrash, and sure enough, that’s what they do. You know all the usual influences, we’ve listed them here for dozens of other skulls, but since Shackles is Australian, we can throw in Armoured Angel, Slaughter Lord, and Destroyer 666. This is just a shitty rehearsal demo, so if you want to check out Shackles, you’re going to want to look to either their studio demo or debut album. Neither is what I would call “polished” but they’re listenably produced and the latter even includes a few unexpected flourishes, like the church organ in “Orgy of Corpses.” For black and white retro death, I prefer Bones from the US, but Shackles are perfectly fine for when you’re feeling ’86. Were perfectly fine, I should say. They released that one album in 2009 and then broke up. You can’t keep a good band down, I guess.
— Friar Johnsen

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MANDATORY, Exiled in Pain (2008, Obliteration)

The skull:
This skull was walloped so hard that he flew right out of somebody’s face and somehow ejected his eye at an even greater velocity. This is pretty funny on its own, but you can see lots of other eyes in the background, suggesting that wherever this guy has been exiled, this sort of thing happens all the time. I imagine some infinite dimension of high velocity skulls (and their attendant eyes), all of them shrieking some variation on, “This is the worst!” But unless the skull launching happens from a single, central point, some of these skulls are going to start colliding, and then they’re going to learn the real meaning of pain!

The music:
Exiled in Pain collects all of Mandatory’s demos, which date from the early 00s but sound like relics of early 90s. Entombed are the primary influence, but the many slower sections sound like remedial Bolt Thrower riffs, and occasionally the band throws in some nods to primeval Florida death metal like Massacre. The production is more or less uniformly boxy and cheap, but that was probably by design, as Mandatory are clearly a nostalgia act. They’re not bad, but there were SO many Entombed knockoffs kicking around when that band was still great (which was a really long time ago), and pretty much all of of them are better on average than Mandatory, but if you’ve collected it all and you still need more Scandinavian death metal (even if it’s made by a German band) then Mandatory might be… something something… trying so hard not to make a joke about the band’s name… must… be… strong…
— Friar Johnsen

…an option. God damn it.

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EXCOMMUNICATED, Skeleton Key (2011, UW)

The skull:
The ol’ skull and crossbones motif gets a fresh coat of paint with a couple of keys and a priest’s fascia (that’s the sashy thing taking the usual place of a rolled parchment or whatever.) It’s obviously not a design of stunning originality, but its nevertheless a fresh take on a stale concept, and the components of the illustration are nice looking, to boot. It would be nice if someone ever took the time to make the copied and pasted elements look like two different things, but maybe I’m asking too much. And lastly, I question the wisdom of putting two keys on an album called Skeleton Key, singular, but I guess I’ve just got a hard-on for concordance in design.

The music:
Excommunicated play a slightly melodicized, slightly blackened take on Morbid Angel style death metal minus the Azagthothian weirdness but with the addition of a healthy dose of doom death. They’re moderately ambitious without being particularly complicated, and their music is certainly moody and well-fitted to the overarching theme, which concerns the crimes and excesses of the medieval Catholic Church. Lots of bands sing about the Inquisition with an anti-Christian slant, but Excommunicated really go whole hog with the concept, weaving in snippets of sacred music, spoken-word passages of historical texts, and other bits of liturgical color. While I’m never bowled over, exactly, by the music, I really appreciate Excommunicated’s commitment to the bit, which never descends to parodic blasphemy. There’s enough variety, too, to keep the album from ever getting boring. It’s an impressive debut that might be a little too classy for the meat and potatoes death metal crowd, but if it does find purchase in that scene the band should do well.
— Friar Johnsen

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WITHERIA, Spiral of Madness (2005, demo)

The skull:
Here’s a fine skull, emblazoned with some kind of logo sigil or something and hovering dead in the center of the cover. But, I dunno, wouldn’t it maybe be better if he was in the middle of a motherfucking spiral? Don’t even try to tell me that all that reticulated crap at the margins is a spiral. It is not a spiral. Shit like this makes me crazy, and the title is not Missing Spiral of Madness, or Where’s the Spiral of Madness? Am I asking too much? Am I being unreasonable? I am not.

The music:
9 times out of 10, a bad name equals a bad band, and let’s be frank: Witheria is a bad name. It conjures the memory of all those shitty goth metal bands of the mid 90s, something with violins and a woman with a reedy voice singing about swans and/or sadness. And yes, yes, we should not judge books by covers, bands by their name, etc, but we all do, and sometimes we get burned. I have a friend who stays amazingly on top of pretty much all the thrash and melodic death metal that comes out every year, and he posts epic lists of his findings every year, and he’s recommended this band THREE TIMES, and I think probably I just blanked out at “Witheria”. Well, my loss, because this band is pretty damned cool. They’re semi-complex thrash with crazy riffs and interesting arrangements, but they don’t come off as retro at all. The only older band they remind me of at all is my beloved Rosicrucian, and the resemblance is spiritual more than anything. The vocals are the only sticking point, and even they aren’t bad, tending toward the high raspy growl that was popular in the Gothenburg heyday. It’s just that it’s easy to imagine a more interesting vocal approach than this, considering the strength of the music. It’s pretty rare that a Big Dumb Skull band impresses me like this, and more or less as soon as I listened to these three tunes, I started tracking down their studio albums. And those even have great art as well (even if they sadly lack skulls in the conventional sense.) Here’s to unexpected gifts!
— Friar Johnsen

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THE KILLING MACHINE, Fellow’s Wait (2005, demo)

The skull:
This looks like some super-generic horror movie poster. Or actually, like some super-generic direct-to-DVD horror movie cover. You can practically see the small serifed font underneath that says something like, “Evil bursts through.” The big skull actually has a little skull nestled into his forehead, like the beginning of a nasty skull fractal, but because the size differential is so great, and because the little guy is clearly of a piece with the big guy, we’ll treat it as an adornment and not a second skull for the purposes of Skullection qualification. But yeah, it looks like the skull is emerging from a satin bedsheet or something, which I guess would be kind of scary. But what the hell does “Fellow’s Wait” mean? Does it, and the image (with the sheets), imply some supernatural sexual menace? As in, “This fellow’s wait for some action has been so long, he’s a skull now, and he’s not gonna wait anymore!” That must be the plot of the movie: this skull flying around the haunted house some nubile young lady has just inherited, making kissy noises and chasing the sisters of the heroine’s sorority, who though this would be an awesome location for their Halloween mixer with the dudes from Kappa Tau. Damn. I need to call my agent. This is gold!

The music:
The Killing Machine began as an Iron Maiden and Judas Priest cover band, and this, their lone demo, bears those influences out. Sadly, they sound more like late 90s Maiden and Priest than I think anyone would prefer, but they’re not a terrible band. Just a little dull. They even have a song called “We Bore,” which is the saddest mission statement I can imagine. There is some life and even some originality in “The Mansion” but mostly, this is metal that fails to excite. The singer is adequate, with a reasonably wide range, but his voice has a weird pinched tone, as if he forgot his allergy medicine. The demo is produced a bit oddly, but there’s something very natural about it that I find appealing. The band is “on hold,” supposedly, but with only this one demo to their name, I think it’s probably safe to say this is the last we’ll hear of The Killing Machine, but if they do reactivate, hopefully the intervening ten years will have imparted the wisdom and taste to take this music in the direction it needs to go.
— Friar Johnsen