SKULL627

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Friar Johnsen

BONE SICKNESS, Bone Sickness (2010, demo)

The skull:
There isn’t much to say about this skull except to note that the sickness in question seems to cause cracking and fissures in an infected skull. A tough break, for sure. What most tickles me about this cover is the efficiency with which they reused the N and E in their logo. No sense wasting the ink on two Ns and two Es, when one each will suffice. Clearly these anarcho-punks are of the enviro- sort. If only they could have found a way to cut down on the Ss.

The music:
This here’s some rehearsal room d-beat death metal that sounds like someone trying to reverse engineer Amebix from the first Bolt Thrower album. As crusty stuff goes, it’s very well written, but it’s hard to listen to anything so shitty sounding. Hard for me, at least — this demo has been reissued twice, on cassette and 7″ vinyl, so I guess the fidelity is sufficiently high for at least a few hundred die-hards. Do you think Hellbastard sold out when they released a full length album? Do you own at least five bands that start with Dis-? Have you ever stencilled anything in white out on your leather jacket? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you need this shit. Like, right away!
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL625

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Friar Johnsen

RETALIADOR, Ultra Violência (2006, demo)

The skull:
A second skull from Retaliador, this one a little more typical than the last. I must admit, I miss the silly hat. But, you can’t argue with a proper hammersmashing, I guess. What I like most here is the crazy extension of the lower jaw. It’s the usual case of an artist not really thinking about how bones movie to produce the shapes you see in real, fleshclad bodies. If this guy actually closed his jaw, he’d have an underbite to rival Popeye’s, and this guy also has to contend with fangs. It’s not so much ultra violência this guy needs, but ultra orthodoncia.

The music:
As on the demo Friar Wagner reviewed yesterday, this one trades mostly in mid 80s thrash riffs of the sort those endearingly inept Germans stumbled through. Without having heard that demo, I can still say that Retaliador probably got better in the interim. This is not polished stuff, but it’s still fairly advanced from the almost comically sloppy playing on the earliest Sodom and Kreator recordings. For the oldschoolers who love this throwback crap, that might be a problem, and for those of us whose baseline standards for execution were set in the later, more professional 80s, this is still too messy to be good. No one wins! But, if for some reason you’re still jonesing for Retaliador, this demo and a bunch of other stuff was collected on CD in 2012, although if you’re listening to this on disc and not tape, all your friends will know you’re totally untr00.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL609

Posted on September 1, 2014 by Friar Johnsen

CHRISTER PETTERSSON, Play Fast (2012, demo)

The skull:
This probably would have looked pretty cool drawn on the underside of a skateboard in sharpie in 1986. As big dumb skulls go, well, he’s big and he’s incredibly, almost impossibly dumb, but it’s hard to get too worked up about something obviously drawn by a kid. We can be mean here at Skull HQ, but it’s not our intention to make children cry. Usually.

The music:
This is blazing fast grind that sounds like it was derived from punk and not death metal, which is to say it doesn’t take itself too seriously and isn’t too good. But grind is never my thing, no matter the minor variations. The film samples they include are fairly amusing at least. The historical Christer Pettersson was a a suspect in the killing of Sweden’s prime minister in the mid 80s, but his conviction was later overturned. I have no idea what are the politics inherent in naming your band after this guy, but I’m sure it all means more to a Swede than to me. Anyway, if you love both grind and crust, then maybe you’ll like this. It doesn’t sound horrible as these things go. But I’ll never be able to say anything too intelligent about this style of music, because I just can’t bring myself to care.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL607

Posted on August 30, 2014 by Friar Johnsen

SOCIAL DESPAIR, Social Despair (2007, demo)

The skull:
I don’t recall seeing another skull with only half a jaw. For all the violence we’ve seen visited on skulls here at Skull HQ, this seems the most brutal. What holds the thing on, I can’t say, but I bet it hurts like all hell. Fortunately, this guy looks to be riding out his Hellraiser-esque eternity in style, what with that kickin’ mullet and badass fangs. He’s probably like, “Yeah, I’m all chained up through a hole in my top, and my bottom jaw is fucking busted in half, but they didn’t even ding the fangs! Suckers!” That’s some Myth of Sisyphus-level existentialism right there, folks.

The music:
Obviously, this is a thrash band. Obviously. The name, the logo, and of course the cover all give it away. But, they don’t have the sound of a trendhopping rethrash act. Instead, they sound like a bunch of meatheads who wanted to play death metal but found it was just too hard, so they dumbed it down and arrived at some kind of remedial thrash, the sort played by high school bands in 1991 who mostly decorated their denim vests with Metallica patches but who just discovered Deicide. The sound is awful, the playing sloppy, the riffs dull, and the vocals unlistenable. At least the songs are short. Interestingly, Social Despair appear to have released an album only last year — there’s proof of it on their Facebook page — but despite an even more awesome BDS cover, the album doesn’t appear on Metal Archives and I can’t find sound samples for it. So, maybe Social Despair got their act together and turned into a good band, although I can’t say I have particularly high hopes for a record called Refusal for Abreaction.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL605

Posted on August 28, 2014 by Friar Johnsen

AGGRESSIVE MUTILATOR, Skull Torture (2012, demo)

The skull:
Sure, it looks like a skull on a stake, but look closer at that alleged pike: doesn’t it look a lot like these? And if that’s just a concrete nail, then this skull is incredibly tiny. I think the artiste who crafted this fine piece of art just pulled the skeleton out of his aquarium and popped the skull onto a nail for his model. I suppose that constitutes torture of a sort. Or maybe it’s the most horrifying torture you can subject a skull to, rendering him badly for a shitty demo. “Tell me everything I wish to know, aquarium skull!” “You can’t break me! I’ll never talk!” “Very well. Then it won’t bother you at all if I submit this crudely sketched likeness to a bunch of Swedish posers for their old school black metal demo.” “You wouldn’t!” “I would, mister skull, and if you don’t start cooperating, the next drawing is going to a death metal band in Ecuador.” “NOOOOOOO!!!!!!”

The music:
This plays a little like a parody of the first Bathory album, with songs built on braindead Venom-style riffs (like, two per song), croaky frogman vocals, and lyrics that would have been too dumb for Tom Angelripper circa 1982. I can’t imagine a person who would like this demo and also enjoy the humor of Big Dumb Skulls, but on the off chance you listen to this kind of thing ironically, well, bust out your mustache wax because it’s going to be an event to remember.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL554

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Friar Johnsen

INFESTER, Darkness Unveiled (1992, demo)

The skull:
The badly drawn demon skull (named Lester the Infester, I hope) is certainly big and dumb, but I’m especially amused by the six pointed turkey leg star behind the skull. I mean, that’s what those things are, right? Giant drumsticks? I know that Lester is supposed to scare me away, but I can’t help it; I’m hungry for poultry now.

The music:
Friar Wagner was sent by The Council on some kind of secret mission, so it will fall to me to cover his skulls for a bit, but it’s too bad he’s missing out on Infester, because this is the kind of old school death metal that he, well, likes slightly more than I do. They don’t exactly sound like Blasphemy (a favorite touchstone for the other Friar) but they’re in the same ballpark, maybe also reminding of early Incantation or Deeds of Flesh. Basically, they’re a better version of Rottrevore. The vocals are far gurglier than I like in my death metal, and some of the riffing is a too rudimentary, but when they slow it down and kick it Bolt Thrower style, I can dig it, and when they dance near the fringes of thrash, they recall other borderline bands of the time like my beloved Thanatos. I certainly wasn’t collecting death metal demos in 1992, and if I had been, I probably would have been put off by the murky sound here, but in retrospect, this sounds pretty good for an early 90s death metal demo, and looking back, it’s only because there were so many better bands that Infester (and their ilk) never went anywhere. It’s not that they were terrible, or even below average; it’s just that there were more great bands than anyone really knew what to do with.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL203

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

GANGRENATOR, Imminent Gangrene (2008, demo)

The skull:
Blotchy and slimy, this skull is unduly pleased with himself. “Hey ladies?! Who wants a taste of this?” he beckons, resolutely sure of his game. I especially love how he’s able to cock an eyebrow of pure skull. Evidently a bad case of gangrene will really make your bones mushy.

The music:
Pure 80s-style grindcore a la Napalm Death and Carcass. The drum machine doesn’t much rankle because the sound is authentically bad all around. Reek of Putrefaction is not my go-to Carcass album, but if that’s the one you listen to the most, then you might love Gangrenator, but for sure you own worse. And though it was released in 2008, Imminent Gangrene was pressed only on cassette, so basically, all the work to decide if this is a thing you need has been handily encoded in signifiers for you.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL159

Posted on June 8, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

PERSECUTOR, Wings of Death (2008, Rawblackult Productions)

The skull:
You’d be forgiven for thinking this demo was released in 1985, but no, it came out in 2008. There was a time when covers this bad were obviously the product of overeager teenagers doing their best to bring their evil visions to life, but in this late and derivative age, men probably in their late 20s or older are making covers like this to conjure a false nostalgia for an era they were born too late to know firsthand. You almost have to wonder if the job of drawing the skull went not to the guy in the band with the most artistic skill, but to the guy with the least, just for the sake of some misunderstood authenticity. You also have to wonder, “Where are the fucking wings?”

The music:
Unsurprisingly, it’s throwback thrash with a black metal twist, but it’s played with more verve than you might expect, and with no small amount of actual musical skill. I’m especially impressed by the rubber snake bass that burbles throughout with an almost spastic business. It’s excessively overplayed, in the best way. The riffing is also fairly clever at times, although this is one of those reverse synergy situations where putting everything together smooths over the most interesting elements to create an overall atmosphere of familiarity. I’ve been exposed to a lot of music like this since BigDumbSkulls.com came online, and this is one of the better examples, but I still probably wouldn’t listen to it unbidden by duty. But, if raw throwback German style thrash with nods to first wave black metal if your kind of thing, then you’d probably love Persecutor.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL89

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

SACRIFICE, Crest of Black (1986, demo)

The skull:
Even by the standards of the hand-drawn demo cover, this skull is pretty lame. Why does a skull with no eyes need an eyepatch? Why not wear two, then? The pentagram is of course always a welcome addition, and it’s nice that instead of the cliched knife in the teeth, this pirate skull is biting down on a big axe, it’s notched blade glinting in the sun. How he’s going to wield it is another question for another time.

The music:
Early Japanese thrash that’s pretty much exactly as good as you’re imagining. It’s easy to forget when you hear something this murky and terrible that in 1986, thrash was actually pretty advanced. It’s the year of Reign in Blood, Peace Sells, and Master of Puppets, but you’d think from listening to Crest of Black that Hellhammer’s first demo had just been released, that Mantas was still in Venom, and that Quorthon was still squatting over pentagrams. This demo sounds terrible, the songs are awful, and the playing and singing are atrocious. I know there’s a whole scene of people for whom this kind of “authenticity” trumps all other concerns (and it is for exactly this undiscerning crowd that this barely-a-footnote demo was bootlegged on vinyl), but I for one demand a bit more than an unusual (for metal) provenance and a yellowing photocopied tape sleeve. Don’t hear small sound indeed!
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL81

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

SKULLCRUSH, Skullcrush (2009, self-released)

The skull:
Really, Skullcrush, would it have been so hard to crush the fucking skull? Like, you’re halfway there, guys! You’re not “Tallskull” or “Tophalfofskull,” you’re Skullcrush. Just crush it already! And don’t try to tell me that black area up top is a sign of crushing. That just looks like someone set off some firecrackers on the skull’s forehead. So, next time, keep it simple like this, but get the details right. A crushed skull on a black background, with your crappy typewriter logo on top, just like this one. That’d be perfect.

The music:
It’s not everyday you hear Macedonian metal, and while I was expecting the worst, really, this isn’t so bad. The base formula for Skullcrush is late 80s German thrash of the second-tier: Assassin, Protector, Living Death, that sort of thing. Fast picking, a few inspired riffs, and a lot of the basketball beat, with vocals that are almost hardcore shouting (and in… Macedonian? I guess?) The production isn’t the best, but I’ve made do with less, and the tunes are solid if you don’t care that you’ve heard a hundred others just like them. Hardcore thrashers looking for something new could do a lot worse than to pad out their collections with this sort of thing, and of course you can impress your friends by being able to name a Macedonian thrash band. In any case, this is better than all those lame American and British rethrash bands writing songs about moshing and beer.
— Friar Johnsen