Category Archives: Skull

Skull of the day

SKULL106

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VOETSEK, Voetsek  (2005, Deep Six)

The skull:
Looks like a raging troublemaker of a skull, this guy…horns, sharp fangs, wings. And he’s apparently laughing at YOU, cuz YOU are the one about to meet a horrible fate. This skull is gonna live forever. The lopsided eyes make this skull look that much more demented. The color is orange rust, not too far away from the color of dried blood. YOUR blood. Shit, even the band logo includes umlauts over the O and an upside down cross. Holy hell.

The music:
Amazingly, this EP is not all that metal in sound, despite the cover. At this stage Voetsek were more punk than metal, but their speed-freaked ferocity is something any fan of rabid thrash can get their teeth into. Eight songs blaze by in six minutes here, but it’s their later stuff that has a more metallic feel. This is their early Suicidal Tendencies to their later Cryptic Slaughter, if you know what I mean.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL105

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CRYSTAL LAKE, Terror Machine (2007, self-released)

The skull:
It’s like, “how much more brown could this be?” and the answer is, “None. None more brown.” Any cover where the background is basically just noise should set off aesthetic alarms. Yes, I can see that there’s some barbed wire in there, and I guess some… pipes? but really, it just looks like a seamless tile for your evil desktop. It appears that the terror machine is really just an apparatus for skull ventilation, which doesn’t seem so sinister to me.

The music:
Modern thrash with death metal production values. Think Krisiun doing Dew Scented covers or something. Yeah, that good. A strong Slayer influences dominates the riffing, but this being a Brazilian band, there’s a thorough undercurrent of much sloppier oldschool shit derived from German sources. Vocals are a joyless barking. The band is tight, but the songs are dull. If you’re the kind of person who’s totally worn out your Carnal Forge discs, then I guess maybe you’d like Crystal Lake, but if you’re really that kind of person, you’re probably too irony deficient to be reading Big Dumb Skulls in the first place.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL104

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XANADOO, Mindless Purge  (2007, demo)

The skull:
An X-ray image of what appears to be an alien skull, or an advanced case of hydrocephalus. It’s incredibly simple, and we applaud that, but there’s hardly anything else to note other than this (and I would like all but the most dedicated Skullologists to leave the room now): Note that this skull (104), as well as skulls 102, and 98, all feature a skull with the left eye blacked out, or perhaps it’s the right eye that’s somehow illuminated. Yes, I have a life, and I know you do too, but…isn’t that weird? Class dismissed.

The music:
Singapore’s Xanadoo plays mindless thrash, hence the demo title, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s wholly derivative but not lame enough to call it Xanadoo-doo. Darn. This is for sure: whole lotta early Tankard goin’ on. It’s hard to find any more appropriate reference point for this than Zombie Attack — same frenzied speed, minimal distortion on the guitars, infectious riffs, vocals blurted out in earnest, frivolous lyrical concerns, titles like “Combat Thrash” and “Metal Mania.” The guitar solos are not all that improvised-sounding, rather kind of thematic and pretty memorable. Since this demo was released they’ve got a bunch of other material available — demos, splits, self-released albums and whatnot — but I’m surprised these guys aren’t on a label like Heavy Artillery or Punishment 18, considering there’s some kind of market out there for re-thrash. Case in point, an album title like Black. Death Grind. Shit! They know what they want and know how to play it.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL103

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ILLDISPOSED, The Prestige (2008, AFM)

The skull:
Here we have a rounded, almost simian skull plummeting through the black abyss, leaving some kind of osseous vapor trail. It’s actually an eye-catching image, even if it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The photoshop work on the boney miasma is not very convincing, but the lighting and simplicity of the base skull image are quite nice. Ironically, the Council agrees that the digitial foofery dramatically diminishes the prestige of this cover, which, had it been just the skull, would have been through-the-roof!

The music:
Grooving mid-tempo death metal a la Gorefest, although obviously not as good, because no one does this like Gorefest. Illdisposed, from Denmark, add a bit of the requisite Scandinavian melodicism to the riffery, but the formula is basically song-oriented death metal reminiscent of the times when “song oriented death metal” wasn’t an oxymoron. I had never heard Illdisposed before this, and I have to say I’m fairly impressed overall. This is a pretty late release for them, their eighth, and they’ve been around since 1993, which made me wonder if their earlier stuff was better, and in fact, that seems to be the case. If anything, their more recent output is perhaps a bit too polished. The extra brutality of the earliest albums, while never overweaning, is definitely missed now. But while they seem to have maintained a remarkable quality in their songwriting over two decades, the vocals have always been kind of bad, a sort of mushy gurgle of a growl, the work of a guy trying way too hard to sound evil. You’ll get that with death metal, even some good stuff, but it’s still always a bit disappointing. I can live with the singing, though, because the music is good, and I think there’s a good chance I’ll even buy some of this stuff.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL102

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DESOLATION ANGELS, Feels Like Thunder  (2008, Cyclone Empire)

The skull:
Now here’s a skull that’s seen better days. At the present moment depicted on the cover, the skull is attempting to bite away at manacles that ensnare his wrists. Usually any sign of a skeleton disqualifies a skull from entering these hallowed halls, but even the limbs shown are partial, and not obviously connected to any kind of body. And without any kind of neck or spine bones visible, this skull floats in its imprisoned doom. The nasal hole is of a particularly triangular shape, as if the drawer of the skull lost his skull reference book. The skull also sports quite a bony bulge above his right eye, and that eye is clouded in yellow. You can tell this skull’s been through absolute hell, and he’s trying not to take it anymore.

The music:
Feels Like Thunder is a collection of 4 CDs anthologizing this well-regarded NWOBHM band’s studio, demo and live recordings. Their run lasted the entire ’80s decade, and while it’s on the darker, rawer, heavier side of that British metal movement, I’m still left a little cold with much of it. Some of the band’s material sounds like early ’80s Blue Oyster Cult when BOC were attempting a more metallic direction, and generally there’s a very likable vibe here. Lots of NWOBHM is just super-raw pub rock, but not Desolation Angels; this is heavy metal through and through. And although there’s a lot to like from the movement (Diamond Head, Angel Witch, Gaskin, Legend), I personally end up appreciating most of the other bands for what they kick-started without loving the music itself. And what they kick-started were the bands from the U.S. and German thrash movements, and the later speed and power metal also. Sorry, but Desolation Angels aren’t the avatars of NWOBHM perfection that many make them out to be, but to each his own…for my own, there’s still hardly anything better than Gaskin’s End of the World!
— Friar Wagner

SKULL101

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SARCASM, Revolt (2006, On-Parole Productions)

The skull:
For as big and central as this skull is, this cover couldn’t be less exciting. It fails to properly capture true dumbness, and neither does it offer even a whiff of adolescent heavy metal cool. The motion blur in the lights and the fuzziness of the skull are obviously a desperate attempt to make any artistic statement at all with this cover, but what that statement is, and how it relates to the title, I couldn’t say. Nevertheless, this is probably the perfect embodiment of a color I would never have thought possible: neon brown. What could be dumber than that?

The music:
Slovenia’s Sarcasm started as a fairly typical eastern European thrash band, attempting a relatively melodic take on the genre but playing it with the precision of mid 80s German thrashers (note: not a compliment). It appears they took the 90s off, taking thirteen years to follow up their 1989 debut, and in that time they mellowed significantly, with Revolt sounding more like speedy traditional metal (bordering occasionally on power metal) than thrash. Arakain, a favorite of mine from the Czech Republic, made a similar transition, albeit with more grace (and much better tunes). Sarcasm are hobbled by congenital sloppiness: the playing is haphazard, the half-barked, half-sung vocals are rather bland, and no attention is paid to the details. But, the songs are generally pretty fun, with some good riffs that recall the better middle-tier European speed metal acts of the 80s, and the production is appropriately but not distractingly old school. About half the lyrics are in what I assume is Slovene, but the rest are in English, and it must be said that these are not good. Slovene (or whatever it is) is an excellent metal language, like Czech, but even when singing in their native tongue, they make some regrettable choices, notably the chorus to “Silicon Carne” which REALLY sounds like “Chili con carne”. I’d love it if this play on words was intentional, but it almost certainly was not. Revolt is maybe not quite good enough to really get excited about, but it at least stokes an interest in their other releases. Unfortunately, this appears to be the apex of their melodic sound (their lone release since is not as good), and the earliest, pure thrash album, while perhaps more successful on those terms, is not as good in an absolute sense. If I happen to notice the release of a new Sarcasm album, I’ll probably check it out, but not with a great deal of optimism.

SKULL100

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PAGANOS, Infierno Real  (2007, Pacheco Records)

The skull:
This cover might have never been added to the Skullection due to the “No Skulls” rule had the Council of the Elders of the Skull not determined that the skull image to the left of the main skull was a mere reflection of the front and center skull. A reflection in a watery sort of mist or fog, perhaps, but it’s not totally clear. The owner of the skull appears to have suffered a dire fate, drilled straight through the noggin by a thick drill bit or whittled tree limb, branded on the forehead like any old cow’s rump and left to drift in a smoky psychedelic yellow purgatory. Man, what these skulls have to go through sometimes.

The music:
This is Argentinian metal that uses Bay Area style thrash as its base, some Sepultura references, a tiny dash of German thrash, and also gets into a kind of American ’90s power metal pocket. The latter is heard in a few passages of melodic vocal, which seem to worship James Rivera and Bobby Lucas on a song like “La Unica Razon” but don’t have the control or power of those dudes. It also recalls early Blind Guardian in its mixture of thrash intensity and traditional heavy metal tropes. There are two guys doing vocals, apparently, one more frantic and less melodic than the other…sometimes the “heavier” vocal recalls Mille Petrozza in the Renewal era, which is weird, but that’s what I’m hearing. Although Infierno Real has its moments, it’s frustratingly inconsistent and entirely scattered as to the direction it aims for. Sometimes Paganos shows a proper amount of dexterity to pull off semi-technical riffs, yet other times they stumble over themselves in an embarrassing show of clumsiness (“Quemando el Tiempo” features sloppy guitar playing and drumming…and super-shitty vocals too). I love how the guitar intro to “La Unica Razon” brings to mind one of Joey DeMaio’s ridiculously frenzied piccolo bass compositions. I guess when things start feeling dull, the mind wanders and looks for any old reference to stay alert. The music on this 12-song, entirely-too-long 55-minute album tries hard to achieve something impressive (the eight-minute “Muerte Justa” even roundly qualifies as “progressive”), but too often pulls itself down in blaze after blaze of unoriginality, or incompetence, or both. So why bother? Because there’s a good degree of potential in spots. They put another album out in 2010, one I’m almost tempted to check out.

When we opened up this site, one of our main questions was and remains whether skull album cover artwork revealed “laziness in both musical and artistic execution?” A waltz through the first 100 album covers shows that the answer is “Yes” about 75% of the time. And onward we go…so many amazing covers yet to be revealed.  As for musical quality, we make no promises…
— Friar Wagner

SKULL99

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ANCIENT NECROPSY, Ancient Necropsy (2003, Nice to Eat You)

The skull:
Looking like a three-for-a-dollar rubber skull set out in a basket as an impulse buy at the Halloween Adventure store, this skull was clearly not menacing enough on his own, so the cover artist helpfully added some slanty “angry” eyebrows, straight out of an Archie comic. And then, you know, some fire and lightning and shit. What’s even going on here? Is this necropsy so ancient that it predates the earth taking form, happening amidst the fiery tumult of planetary creation? Or is this skull merely out grillin’ in a lightning storm, having used too much lighter fluid again?

The music:
Question: what do you get when you cross Pyaemia with Brodequin, in a Colombian bedroom? Answer: Sweet hell, don’t even make me think about it!
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL98

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EXIT WOUNDS, Exit Wounds  (2008, No Escape)

The skull:
Stark and bleak, this morbid looking photograph of a skull, brought into greater focus by the circle around it and without the distraction of words. Only the number 30 looms in the lower right quadrant, and this is, probably not coincidentally, the number of songs on this album. (Yes, they’re a grindcore band.) The skull’s left eye is so hollow, it’s black as the abyss and ends up looking like an eyepatch…and we dig eyepatched skulls here at Big Dumb Skulls HQ. And, unless it’s just a shadow, the upper right part of the cranium appears to be missing. This would probably be the “exit wound.” Clever.

The music:
There’s nothing interesting about this music whatsoever. It’s well-played, certainly, and I don’t doubt each member of this Polish band knows every Napalm Death, Nasum and Disrupt song title there is. I love ’80s and ’90s-era Napalm Death, and of course Terrorizer and other super-crazy death metal that intersects with grind, mostly from the older days, and I have been exposed to tons of grind over the decades (hey, I used to work at Relapse) but enough already! Give me something I can use. At least this album blazes by in a short 23 minutes…admittedly 23 very punishing, pummeling, violent minutes. I wonder what Friar Johnsen is listening to right now…
— Friar Wagner

SKULL97

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OVERKILL L.A., Triumph of the Will (1985, SST)

The skull:
Another totenkopf, but look at the size of it! If you’re gonna appropriate Nazi iconography for your album cover, this the way to do it: big and dumb. The copper coloring is a nice touch, too: it tones down the monochromatic harshness that plagues so many totenkopf album covers, although to be fair, this is the earliest example of the form in the skullection. Every cliche was a good idea at one time.

The music:
It really does send some confusing signals to decorate your cover with the insignia of the SS, while also titling it after the infamous Leni Riefenstahl propaganda film glorifying Hitler and his government. Well, no: it sends the rather clear signal that your band are Nazi sympathizers. In this case, the confusion comes later, when you realize that Overkill L.A. (naturally, the geographical suffix was added only after a conflict with Overkill N.Y.) are not a Nazi, national socialist, or in any way racist band. In truth, they’re only barely metal, too, although there’s enough Motorhead in this degenerate west coast punk amalgam to pass muster with the Council. I guess the cover and title are just part and parcel of a punk predilection for provocation, because the lyrics don’t even seem to make much of a special anti-racist statement, either. Just your typical me-against-the-world snottiness typical of mid 80s west coast punk, with a touch of the toughness that would shortly come to define (sometimes parodically) American hardcore. Personally, I’ve known about this album forever, as it used to show up all the time in the record shop section otherwise reserved for the one true Overkill (another skull-loving group), and I’m sure I listened to at least a song of this at some point, but I never listened to the whole thing until now. It’s… not bad! I wouldn’t have liked it at all in the 80s, but as an older, wiser man, I can appreciate its grit and working class moxie. It’s not a great album, and seemingly every song is played at the same middle tempo, but if you like early Motorhead and can also get behind Black Flag and Social Distortion, you might love this.
— Friar Johnsen