Category Archives: Skull

Skull of the day

SKULL36

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The skull:
Candlemass provide great examples of the fine line between artful skullery and boring skullery. The image on their debut album, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, is certainly one of the finest heads ever to be defleshed and paraded to the metal masses. It’s one of the most iconic skulls in metal, and they have regurgitated it a lot. This skull, however, is just kinda there. It’s got an ancient-enough look to it, with a little crown atop its noggin. It would be a much more striking cover if we hadn’t seen, you know, 4,562 skull album covers before it. And no, we’re not complaining. Just sayin’.

The music:
King of the Grey Islands is probably the best of the Robert Lowe-era Candlemass albums — an era that has apparently come to pass, as he was booted for poor live performances. It’s also the first they recorded with the Solitude Aeturnus frontman, and while I like Lowe on the first few S.A. albums, and certainly here too, I always wished they would have gotten Mats Leven or Epicus singer Johan Langquist for the job. Still, the material is pretty great, especially highlights like “Of Stars and Smoke” and “Clearsight.” Album closer “Embrace the Styx” rams home that epic doom metal element the band christened and basically founded way back in the day. Great stuff.
–Friar Wagner

 

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SINISTER REALM, Sinister Realm (2008 demo)

The skull:
A tasteful pen and ink skull with wings. Actually, on closer inspection, are those wings or an imperially windswept skullet of the most literal kind? Either way, what are all the scribbly doodles in the background? This is a nice but incredibly generic image, better suited to a motorcycle club logo/backpatch than an album cover, even if it’s only a demo. Then again, who has money for proper and meaningful art before landing a lucrative deal with a deep-pocketed heavy metal record label?

The music:
Sinister Realm are from around my neck of the woods, and I’ve seen them live a number of times. I haven’t been able to locate a copy of the demo to review, but I believe I streamed it when it was new, and I’ve heard all of these songs live and on the band’s self-titled debut (which also features a wicked skull, even if it’s not quite big enough). Their traditional metal with flashes of ploddy doom can get old rather quickly on stage, but on disc, it works, more or less. Like an Americanized Candlemass, Sinister Realm trade in Sabbathy riffs and full-throated operatic vocals, with the added touch of some Maidenesque guitar harmonies. At times, not much distinguishes one song from the next, especially in the vocal melodies (an endemic problem of doom, in this Friar’s opinion), but Sinister Realm are just good enough on their instruments, at the mic, and in the studio that the occasionally lackluster songwriting is hidden under a sheen of professionalism. For a band that’s often tacked onto the bill of touring acts I want to see, this is about as good as I could possibly hope for.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL34

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GOD FORBID, Sickness and Misery (Koch, 2007)

The skull:
“Peekaboo, I see you!” says this cute doe-eyed dome of bone. And it literally is a dome depicted on the cover, as we can’t even see its lower portion. Seems the skull is just escaping the trap of barbed wire laid out behind him. Look out, buddy!

The music:
This thing collects 1998’s Out of Misery and 2000’s Reject the Sickness. God Forbid’s early material seems to lean on the metal side of metalcore, and though they’re hardly lacking in musical talent, I always thought God Forbid were pretty damn generic, even if they’re now credited is being forefathers of “deathcore” or whatever. Since this is a collection of early material and not a proper album, it’s no wonder whoever in charge over at Koch thought “let’s slap a skull on the cover. The kids love that shit.” Uh…next!!!
— Friar Wagner

SKULL33

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RUNEMAGICK / LORD BELIAL, Doomed by Death (2002, Aftermath)

The skull:
Including File > New, this cover could be made in Photoshop in five steps. File > New, gradient fill, paste skull, set layer blending options, insert text. If this took more than 15 minutes to create, it’s because the guy in one of the bands who made it had to download a cracked version of Adobe Creative Suite first. It could only have taken longer if the jawless skull had to be cut out of the cover to the Lunatics Without Skateboards, Inc. album. Which would be awesome.

The music:
I had never heard Runemagick before, and I’m not sure the track I listened to is actually from this split, but it’s the same song at least, and it’s not half bad! A sort of Candlemassy doom with death vocals and some interesting textural clean guitars. Color me surprised! Lord Belial I hadn’t heard since the late 90s, and I definitely didn’t care for them then, although a good friend of mine has a weakness for their debut album, which is pink. Again, I can’t be sure if the track I’ve heard is from this split (there are several versions of the song on YouTube, but none indicate this split as the provenance), and as with Runemagick, I’m pleasantly surprised at how listenable it is. From the cover, I expected this to be the worst sort of shit, but this is pretty well composed, mid-paced black metal, heavy on the atmospherics, with some great riffs and a really good solo. Sure, this sounds like dozens of other Swedish bands, and this style is not exactly in my wheelhouse, but I was hardly in a hurry for it to end. Both tracks are well produced (again, assuming I’m listening to the right ones) and good enough to make me think I should dig a little deeper into these bands’ discographies. The power of the skull works in mysterious ways!
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL32

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MASSGRAV, Still the Kings (2012, Selfmadegod)

The skull:
Looks like a really good drawing of a really good photo of a really good skull. It’s big and bold and extremely proud to be a big dumb skull. Probably a product of the band not really sure what to depict in relation to the album title. This is crusty thrashing grindcore sort of stuff, and Massgrav is not the kind of band that would depict themselves on thrones with crowns on their heads or any sort of thing like that. The triangle behind the skull gives an added symmetry to the design, maybe suggesting “pyramid power” (remember that?), maybe not.

The music:
Crust punk and grindcore are obnoxious forms of extreme music, but there’s a thick dividing wall between obnoxious in the jokey sense and obnoxious in the “this is absurdly fast and heavy” sense. Massgrav fit into the latter compartment, firing off short round after short round of angry, belligerent, inspired crust/grind. Like a punkier, thrashier Nasum, maybe. Simple, serious and to the point, like the skullwork on the cover.
— Friar Wagner

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NUCLEAR ASSAULT, Alive Again (2003, Steamhammer)

The skull:
As dashed-off afterthoughts go, this is among the laziest, as the skull is not original to this album, but a close-up crop of the skull from their classic sophomore release Survive. Excised from the original cover and plopped, translucent, over a terrible collage of a cemetary, a lyrics sheet, and a clearly-not-moshing crowd, this once proud skull now stares blankly into the middle distance, wondering how it all came to this. “I was signed to fucking Ian Copeland’s label…” he barely recalls as he nurses a double of whatever well whiskey the bartender at the club provided in exchange for his two drink tickets.

The music:
Somehow, I never saw Nuclear Assault back in the day. I had tickets to see them on the Out of Order tour, with Coroner opening, but the show was cancelled due to lack of interest. While it stung mightily to miss Coroner, I never really felt too bad about missing out on Nuclear Assault, as their subsequent live album, Live at the Hammersmith Odeon was pretty terrible, and the band had a reputation among the kids at my school for kind of sucking live. That said, I fucking adore 1990’s Handle With Care, and in fact, all the albums up to that point were good to great. So, when they got back together in the early aughts, I finally got a chance to see them, and they were amazing! They played the tiny upstairs bar of the club they were supposed to play in 1991, and the place was still only three quarters full, but they tore shit up. John Connelly, who is the most adorable little heavy metal hamster you can imagine, was funny between songs and lacerating during them, and the band was on fire. So how’s this live album recorded around that time? It’s okay. The sound is a bit rough, and though it takes the band a few songs to really get warmed up, they play well, and Connelly’s love-em-or-hate-em vocals are as good as you could possibly expect. But, listening to this just doesn’t capture the actual sweaty energy of seeing these guys, long after they gave up on making it, just tearing through a set of the classics because they love it. There’s more energy here than on that first live album for sure, but I think the only way to properly experience Nuclear Assault is the old fashioned way.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL30

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LUNATICS WITHOUT SKATEBOARDS INC., Welcome to the Asylum (1989, Aaarrg)

The skull:
A jawless skull smashing (exploding?) a skateboard! And, do I detect swirls of hypnosis and/or mesmerism in the sockets? A very nice painting that would make Pushead happy, until he realized that copyright law generally protects this kind of shameless style-aping from prosecution. This is a solid and well executed BDS in every way. You might even call it professional, befitting a legally incorporated band. Hopefully they filed as a C Corporation, as I’m sure Lunatics Without Skateboards Inc was a money-losing venture from the start.

The music:
Braindead speed metal that never stops. Everyone remembers the many great bands on Aarrg like Target, Mekong Delta, and Siren. Then they recall that the label also hosted some enjoyable if generic acts such as Holy Moses and Living Sacrifice. Only in the dim recesses of nightmare, at the midnight of the soul, do collectors realize that if they want to own the label’s entire, highly-collectible discography, they’re going to have to buy Welcome to the Asylum and that Calhoun Conquer LP. Night terrors ensue. Fortunately for no one, this album was reissued a few years ago with bonus demo tracks.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL29

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BLODULV, III – Burial (2005, Eerie Art)

The skull:
Staggering in its simplicity, we have yet another black-and-white photograph of a skull on a black background. That’s it. Its lower mandible is missing, as seems to be all the rage in the world of real skulls. You need springs to keep a skull intact, and apparently these are in short supply or something. The Blodulv logo, a boring old stock font we’ve seen a million times over, is superimposed on the forehead. We love it big and dumb here at Big Dumb Skulls HQ, and it doesn’t get any more exemplary than this. 10 out of 10 fucking skulls.

The music:
Blodulv are a minor but noteworthy entry in the pantheon of 2000s-era U.S. black metal. They kept it more traditional than the disturbed psychedelia of peer bands such as Xasthur and Leviathan. Blodulv sounds downright polite, really, recalling Under a Funeral Moon- / Transilvanian Hunger-era Darkthrone. I know, YAAAWWN, right? Those are such highly copied albums, and there’s nothing better than the original. And even Darkthrone, love their early stuff as I do, were not exactly original on those influential albums. So, Blodulv is dust now, leaving three albums and numerous demos, splits and EPs behind as legacy. Next!!!
–Friar Wagner

 

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FREQUENCY, Compassion Denied (2008, Scarlet)

The skull:
Time was, if you wanted a big dumb skull on your album, you’d have to photograph one, or hire an artist to paint one (or draw one in study hall). For as dubious an aesthetic choice as it was, it was at least a conscious and aforethought decision. Nowadays, you can just email some guy on deviantART and ask for something evil, and he’ll photoshop a bunch of tentacles and tubes to some skull he found on the internet and call it a cover. It’s a shameless state of affairs which The Council has embraced only out of a relentless passion for big dumb skulls, and what is more dumb than mismatched and only barely anti-aliased Photoshop layers?

The music:
Workmanlike modern power metal not unlike Nocturnal Rites’ last few releases. Good singer, hummable hooks, lazy-but-acceptable riffing. Journeyman vocalist Rick Altzi (At Vance, Thunderstone, Masterplan) is the appeal here: a modern Dio disciple in the Russel Allen vein. As with most European power metal, when the singer is doing his thing, the guitarists are coasting on whole notes or undistinguished chugging, but when the singing stops, there are occasional moments of interest from the six (or, more likely, seven) stringers. The production is of the icepick-in-the-eardrums modern variety, all sharp edges and hard limiting, which makes it difficult to listen to the whole album at a go, but it’s probably best enjoyed piecemeal anyway, since all the songs start to sound the same by the end, even if they’re enjoyable on their own.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL27

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SCENTERIA, Art of Aggression (2004, New Aeon Media)

The skull:
An interesting attempt to make one very dull and boring skull look somewhat arty, with the tiled/mosaic sort of treatment. Mission half accomplished. The mid 2000s was when a ton of metal album cover art was rendered in browns, and while this one is mostly on the bone-white end of the spectrum, it has that same dull color scheme so many albums of this era had. Dull, dull, dull…but perfectly big and dumb. We roundly approve!

The music:
As with the album cover, Art of Aggression is competent and professional, but lacking in all originality. What to call this? There’s a strong foundation in post-’80s Testament and Overkill style thrash (chunky and downtuned), a hint of melodic death metal (they are from Sweden), and you assume they have a few Pantera records in their collection. Cut-and-paste death/thrash typical of the aughts, but if In Flames had written songs like  “Dead Point of View” or “Acts of Lunacy,” older fans would have lapped it up instead of shying away from whatever it is In Flames is doing these days. “Dead Point of View” is a good summation of the cover art too.
— Friar Wagner