Author Archives: Friar Johnsen

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VIOLENT HISTORY, Blackstone Valley Thrash (2010, Muerte)

The skull:
You could say that there’s an octopus sneaking up on this plain Jane skull, but I prefer to imagine that the tentacles are just a crazy Lovecraftian mullet, sprouting majestically from the skull’s backside. Blackstone Valley sounds like the kind of place where a skull might think a tentaskullet is cool. But then, it turns out Blackstone Valley is in Rhode Island, and suddenly the parental warning sticker makes sense. Oldschool northeastern maternalistic neoliberalism strikes again!

The music:
Sloppy thrash with some grind and black metal influences, Violent History are almost good, but really need to spend more time rehearsing. The drummer has some great beats, but he struggles to get them across. Some of the riffing is intricate and twisted, while too much of it sounds like any third tier speed metal band. And then the vocals are the kind of uninspired hardcore yell that make everything worse. While the band obviously labels their music thrash, it’s only thrash by derivation. They aren’t trying to recapture the 80s sound and as such don’t bear much resemblance to your typical new thrash band, and I certainly appreciate that. There are only two songs on this EP, and they both have their share of bright moments, but there’s also enough garbage in each to make the listen an unpleasant experience on balance. A little more time in the garage and they could go somewhere, for sure.
— Friar Johnsen

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REFLESHED, Drown the Sky (2010, self-released)

The skull:
Like the snake who eats his own tail, the ouroboros of legend, this cheesy skull guy feasts on his own spine (plus assorted anatomically incorrect muscle tissue). At least, I’m assuming it’s his own spine. There’s a lot of vertebrae implied out of frame, so for all I know this is some sort of Skullish circle jerk. This guy certainly looks depraved enough to be into that kind of stuff. Look at those leering eyeballs! He’s like, “Aw yeah, give it to me! Gimme that spine!” Not that I’m passing judgment. What a skull does in the privacy of his own brownish hellscape is his own business.

The music:
Refleshed are German, but they really want to be Swedish. Like, really, really badly. You can hear the Boss HM-2 in every scuzzy riff. Entombed and Carnage are the touchpoints here, and while Refleshed aren’t even pretending to be doing anything new, they do this old sound pretty well. In fact, they fare the poorest when they deviate from the Stockholm sound, as when they occasionally throw in a half-assed Gothenburg riff, none of which are particularly inspired. Metal Archives describes this band as Deathcore, but judging only from this EP, that label is totally unwarranted. Maybe they added breakdowns on a later release, but here, they’re just trudging down the left hand path. There’s not much more to say, really, except what everyone is already thinking: these guys should TOTALLY tour with Defleshed.
— Friar Johnsen

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DEFCON, Flat Black Philosophy (2010, Bit Riot)

The skull:
We’ve seen skulls in niches before, but this is the first metaloskull in a technoniche (such as would fittingly honor this guy). And while the skull is obviously just spray painted, I have to say, I’m at least a little impressed by the composition here. Someone came up with the marginally interesting idea to reframe this ancient scene in modern, post-industrial trappings, and it works. Sadly, the cover doesn’t make any sense in the context of the title, but at least there is, as I shall presently explain, a thematic bridge from the cover to the music.

The music:
Remember Circle of Dust? Of course you don’t. They were a Christian industrial metal band on the REX label (along with Believer!) who released three moderately good albums in the early/mid-90s before main dude Scott Albert ran off to do an album or two with frat magician Criss Angel (called Angeldust, get it?) Now he’s working the dubstep circuit as Celldweller. What does this have to do with Defcon? Absolutely nothing! Well, except that Defcon sounds, to these ears, identical to Circle of Dust. And that’s not a bad thing. Industrial metal is notoriously hard to pull off; many have tried, but few have succeeded in blending what seems eminently blendable. The fundamental problem, I think, is that the dancier demands of industrial require steadier beats and less variation in the arrangements compared to metal, where the best bands tend to cycle through a lot of riffs and rhythms. Finding the middle ground is obviously harder than it would appear, and groups that fail tend to sound like half-assed KMFDM tribute acts, which is to say, most fail on the side of the side of industrial. Sometimes Defcon falls into this trap, and the Ministry lifts are many, but for the most part, Defcon makes the formula work. Their programming is appropriately sinister, and the riffs, while not especially creative, are at least properly metallic. I’m even occasionally reminded of Passage-era Samael. Defcon aren’t about to dethrone Pitch Shifter as the greatest industrial metal group of all time, but considering how rare a beast is the enjoyable industrial metal album, Flat Black Philosophy is a welcome addition to the canon.
— Friar Johnsen

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THE CHASM, Procession to the Infraworld (2000, Dwell)

The skull:
I suppose this could be a trick of perspective, where a human-sized skull is very close and merely appears to be floating at the center of a nebula, but I think it’s more likely we’re to believe the skull is actually big enough to fill that glowing interstellar cloud of gas and dust, spanning many hundreds of light years. That would make this, easily, the biggest dumb skull we’ve ever encountered in art before. His massive forehead is cracked open to reveal a third eye which itself must be larger than the largest stars. If this guy is at the gate of the infraworld, you’re gonna need some serious sci-fi shit onboard your spacecraft to escape his almost unimaginable gravity. And god help you if that third eye shoots laser beams, as I presume it must! Normally, The Council frowns upon skeletons, but the ban on skeletons is primarily meant to apply to the actual big dumb skull. The two skinny guys here are effectively adornment to the title typography, and so are allowed.

The music:
Mixing Morbid Angel style DM with thrash and black elements, and with a melodic sensibility not unlike early Dark Tranquillity, The Chasm are one of the few extreme bands mixing so many sounds who also do it convincingly. There’s some absolutely crazy riffing on Procession to the Underworld, and some gonzo drumming, and it’s all performed honestly, with a rawness that charms by comparison with today’s ultra-quantized, mercilessly-edited death metal. Back in my zine days, when this album came out, I got a promo copy and I remember thinking it was way better than the logo and art would suggest, but I guess in the crush of free stuff I got back then, I never got around to buying a proper copy or keeping up with the (still-active) band, even despite seeing them live a couple times. This was probably a mistake, as I’ve thoroughly enjoyed revisiting The Chasm and am newly impressed by the passion and even originality on display here.
— Friar Johnsen

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BEYOND THE SILENCE, Soulless Entity (2010, self-released)

The skull:
A snake crawling out of a socket, a giant eyeball, and a logo that screams “crappy deathcore,” this is clearly a cover that takes sucking very seriously. Rendered in the government-issued browns and yellows that are the official colors of BDS nation, this skull futher attempts to gild the shitty lily with some kind of faux-halftone screen effect, for some reason. Probably because the guy who was tasked with assembling the disparate elements of this ur-generic cover just learned how to do it in Photoshop. “This will look great in my portfolio, and will demonstrate to clients and employers my facility with the many functions of CS5,” you can practically read in a thought bubble above some terrible designer’s head. Translated from the original French, of course.

The music:
Super sloppy melodic death metal with gurgly, low, brutal death metal growls, Beyond the Silence appear to be trying to inject some early 90s style Swedish death metal into the melodic framework of modern deathcore. This is neither a good idea nor defly executed. The drummer is the hapless hero here: he consistently reaches for beats and fills well beyond his ability, and his constant flubbing lends the music a shot of honest naivety. He never elevates the proceedings to even the lowest reaches of what could be considered “good,” but there’s something about an old-fashioned Russian Dragon that delights the death metal nostalgist in me. The breakdowns and the burpy vocals, however, dispel that goodwill rather quickly, as do the utterly generic riffs. Beyond the Silence emerged from the French ether to issue this lone EP in 2010 and have evidently done nothing since, so I can now attempt to revert to my natural state of not knowing or caring about them.
— Friar Johnsen

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DESTRUCTION, The Antichrist (2001, Nuclear Blast)

The skull:
Far be it for me to question the judgment of The Council, so I will only say that they must really love Destruction. I would have guessed their previous entry (SKULL138 for those new to the site) would have sufficed, but here we are again. This is the second time this skull has appeared, although he’s not so shamelessly reproduced as the Survive guy, who is pasted on basically every Nuclear Assault album anymore. Here the skull with the cracked brain is the titular Antichrist, wreaking all kinds of havoc on the world, or at least half the world — the image is clearly just mirrored horizontally, so lazy is this cover. And the skull’s pate is implied to actually be the planet, so maybe he’s zapping the moon or something. Who the shit knows. Have you ever read The Apocalypse of John? It’s bonkers.

The music:
This is the second album from the reunited Destruction, and it’s definitely better than the first, All Hell Breaks Loose (a preoccupation of the band, apparently), which is pretty good itself. This stretches out a bit more in the riff department, with more harmonies and even a faint trace of the weirdness from the last days of the first Schmier era, and the beginning of the post-Schmier period (before they turned into a shitty groove metal reject band). It’s not as whacked as the supreme Release from Agony but you can definitely hear that it’s the same dudes at work. I especially appreciate the busyness of Schmier’s bass work, as in the live favorite “Nailed to the Cross”. Some of the tunes are a bit lazier, and if you’ve heard any of the reunion albums, you’ll know the basic contours of The Antichrist before you spin it, but if you like any of ’em, you’ll basically like all of them. That’s not to say you need them all, of course, but I guess they’re all worth a listen if you’re into German thrash.
— Friar Johnsen

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AVANTASIA, Lost In Space (Part 1 & 2) (2008, Nuclear Blast)

The skull:
This looks like some Affliction shirt you’d see on a metal bro walking a Jersey shore boardwalk. Like the sartorial abortion that is any Affliction shirt, this is just some random mishmash of monochrome stupidity, with some tribal-esque spikes, some scrollwork, more filligree (a theme this week), and laurels up top, for some reason. And oh yeah, a big skull. I mean, sure, it’s big, and I appreciate that, but this is clearly a cover that’s at least a little embarrassed by its central figure. But I suppose that’s just as well, because from the gritted-teeth grimace on this skully chap, he’s every bit as mortified to have been slapped on the cover of an Avantasia album. Not even that As I Lay Dying skull is gonna talk to him, now. About the only nice thing I can say about this cover is that it’s not the cover from Lost in Space (Part I), which is just a shot of a pouting, soul-patched Tobias Sammett, resplendent in his guy-liner and bangle bracelets.

The music:
Time was, I really liked Edguy. That time was long ago, however, and brief. Really, the only great thing Sammett has ever done is Vain Glory Opera, and everything since (especially since he got the number for Jon Bon Jovi’s hair stylist) has been an utter atrocity. Avantasia was originally conceived as a power metal rock opera, which is about as horrible a string of four words as I can conceive, and while it enjoyed immediate and implacable success, it was a creative stillbirth from day one, only getting worse over the years. The two Lost in Space EPs, here collected, do not present a story in the same way the other albums do, so at least they’re not burdened with that inanity (nor with Timo Tolkki guest spots), but they’re no more inspired musically, and they lack even the moronic ambition of the original vision. Sammett has moved increasingly from power metal to a kind of super dumb, glossy hard rock over the years, and these EPs stand at the crossroads of those two styles, presenting neither in a particularly good light. The best songs are covers, including the default power metal Ultravox preference “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” (see also: Dreamscape, Freedom Call, The Poodles, et al.) and Abba’s “Lay All Your Love On Me” (see also: Helloween, Reinxeed). Of the original songs, I was about to say something nice about “Ride the Sky,” but of course that’s not an Avantasia song either, but an oldie I didn’t recognize from Lucifer’s Friend. Avantasia has always featured a bunch of guest singers debasing themselves, and here you can cringe to the sounds of Jorn Lande, Bob Cately, and Michael Kiske wasting their talents (although, for Kiske and Lande, that’s more or less their actual career plan now.) That the band could release these pointless, barren EPs and still go on to release four more full lengths is a sad, stupid mystery.
— Friar Johnsen

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AS I LAY DYING, Frail Words Collapse (2003, Metal Blade)

The skull:
A so-sad skull fades into the brown and yellow light, swathed and surrounded in presumably frail words, and also some olde-tyme type filligree, for some reason. Bringing to bear every Photoshopic power of the legendary Metal Blade design team, this cover absolutely explodes, I mean collapses, with mediocrity. A more fittingly banal cover would be hard to imagine, even for the ace artistic wizards working under the crack and lash of Brian Slagel’s whip.

The music:
Singer Tim Lambesis explained in a recent blog post that over the past several years, he had lost his once-prominent Christian faith (as would have been obvious, he further stated, to close readers of his lyrics and internet statements, which suggests his belief in mythical creatures had not entirely departed.) His break-up with God conveniently coincided with his decision to hire a hitman to murder his ex-wife, but having been brought to heel before the assassination could happen, and having spent some time in the hoosegow, he’s perhaps not surprisingly started to reconsider his newfound skepticism. But back in 2003, he was still an eager young theologist asking this big questions. Why are we here? Why do bad things happen to good people? Is it okay to brazenly rip-off the flavor-of-the-month metal band for personal profit? As I Lay Dying were at the vanguard of cheap Killswitch Engage imitation, arriving fully-formed just a year after KSE’s widely-copied Alive of Just Breathing. Back then you could still kinda hear the hardcore influence in this nascent metalcore, but the basic recipe was and is: add some goopy clean vocals to pale In Flames worship, and you’ve got yourself an album. As I Lay Dying are certainly no worse than most of the zillion or so bands to brazenly steal the sound Killswitch Engage barely invented, and you might even call them one of the better metalcore bands, but if you’ve read Big Dumb Skulls for long, you’ll know how much water that carries around here. I sorta like the angular, noisy, Meshuggeneh “A Thousand Steps,” but this quasi-song is less than two minutes, evidently all the interest this band could manage to summon. 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. Which is to say, it sounds nothing like the metalcore of even 2006, let alone the sad remnants of that instantly-tired movement in 2013.
— Friar Johnsen

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SADISTIK EXEKUTION, Fukk II (2004, Osmose)

The skull:
Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! This is a cover that would really rile Beavis up! It’s got fire, guns, some barbed spear thingies and a poorly-spelled curse word, and every fucking tooth is a fang! Crack the dome and throw in a crown of thorns and you’ve got one damned fine Big Dumb Skull.

The music:
Sadistik Exekution are often called “cult,” which is basically code for “just another shitty, grindy deaththrash band.” Mindless speed delivered with maximum slop that caters to people who can tell how much they’ll like an album by the density of bullet belts in the band photo. Fukk II is indeed a sequel to the original, ostensibly classic Fukk and which probably ties up all the loose ends in the story. Like, it finally reveals who fukked Mary, or something. Usually album sequels are just shameless cash-ins made long after a band has lost its mojo, but Fukk II is not merely the spiritual successor of Fukk but the literal successor as well, issued a mere two years later. Maybe like the Keeper of the Seven Keys albums, there was just too much Fukk for Sadistik Exekution to fit on one album, and the label balked at the notion of a double album. Whatever the case, I’d much rather conjecture along these lines than spend more time actually listening to this horrible crap.
— Friar Johnsen

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THE RECKONING, Absence of Mind (1990, demo)

The skull:
Yes, it’s a blindfolded skull resting on a giant, wizened hand, but doesn’t it also look like a giant skull man with a tiny body, very short legs, and an incredibly long dick? I picture this guy capering about in New Orleans near some grim Mardi Gras float, drunk as a boiled owl and having a good ol’ time.

The music:
Most people think Anthrax or Overkill when they think New York thrash, and for sure those bands were at the vanguard of the city’s original thrash sound, but there were plenty of Bay Area inspired bands working their trade in and around the big apple, such as Cold Steel, Dead On, and, evidently, The Reckoning. The singing in this sort of band tended less toward gruff bellowing and more toward a kind of hardcore-inspired shout-singing. The riffing here is mid paced and grooving, rarely even putting on menacing airs (let alone actually doing any menacing). I like the prominent bass, but this is one of the few obvious hallmarks of the East Coast sound intruding on the demo. The Reckoning don’t offer anything new or especially interesting on this five song effort, but at the same time, they don’t make any obvious mistakes, either. I’m sure they riled up a few pits in their day, but it’s pretty clear why they failed to attract any label attention.
— Friar Johnsen