Tag Archives: barbed wire

SKULL662

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FRONT BEAST / MEPHISTO, In League With Evil Metal  (2006, Iron Tyrant)

The skull:
A couple centuries from now, when Big Dumb Skulls – The Big Dumb Coffee Table Book has replaced the Bible as the best-selling book of all time, children will ask their parents and grandparents things like “What was the first big dumb skull ever in the world?,” “Why does Proclamation like horns so much?,” and “What’s your favorite dumb skull, daddy?” It’s likely many of the queried elders will answer of the latter question, “Why, Timmy, I do believe the Front Beast / Mephisto split was the very epitome of the Big Dumb Skull cover: chains, horns, fangs, barbed wire, the Iron Cross. Had it all. Ne’er was a finer one, I’d say.” To which Timmy would reply, “Daddy, what’s a ‘front beast?’”

The music:
Front Beast is terrible. One-man band basement black metal with super-sloppy drumming, crappy riffs, and vocals that make that guy from Switzerland’s Messiah sound like Tony Harnell. This latter element has a weird sort of appeal, but only for a minute or so. They do a cover of Burzum’s “Ea, Lord of the Depths,” which completely lacks the haunting, spectral vibe of the original. It’s obvious this guy took his band’s name from an early, non-album Destruction song because he prefers to think of himself as pretty obscure – I’m also sure this dude is one of those types that thinks Destruction sold out with Infernal Overkill. Mephisto is also terrible. It’s one thing to be raw, feral, primal and all that, but quite another to attempt a spooky melodic intro as in “Fullmoon Damnation” and have the guitars be so wildly out of tune that you’re almost embarrassed for the boys. The drumming is borderline competent, and the vocals are the usual Angelripper-meets-Quorthon sort of deal. It’s all ham-fisted as hell, like early Tiamat playing early Sodom songs while wearing oven mitts. There’s a fine line between audacious primitivism and just plain underwhelming crud like Mephisto.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL630

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SZRON, Death Camp Earth (2012, Under the Sign of Garazel Productions)

The skull:
Swear we’ve seen this before. But that’s probably skull fatigue talking. And really, after you’ve recently studied skulls smoking cigarettes while wearing headphones; skulls wearing ridiculous Egyptian headdresses drawn in black crayon by children; and skulls hatching human heads that are puking black blood…well, this skull is bound to lack impact. A less jaded skull aficionado would surely find this skull fearsome, its sight partially obscured by barbed wire wrap and a common runic character stamped onto its forehead, but after those other recent beauties this is like a trip to the frozen yogurt shop on the corner, where the spicy mango flavor pales next to the banana garlic, seaweed bacon and bubblegum catsup ones.

The music:
At times these Polish black metallers favor the wide-expanse, hugely majestic, all-six-strings kinds of chords that remind of those great early Borknagar records. When they’re not going all epic, though, it’s extremely orthodox modern black metal – seething in the right spots, vocals vile enough to fit the bill, shades of darkness black enough to conjure melancholy ‘n’ might…and boring as hell. I doubt any but the most insatiable black metal gourmand needs to sit down and dig in. Long songs, too: four of them in nearly 40 minutes. Please note that Metal Archives says this band’s lyrical topics touch upon “Anti-Humanity, Anti-Christianity, Death, Evil.” Fresh new ground for a black metal band, basically.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL461

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WEST WALL, Conquest or Death (2009, self-released)

The skull:
Tank treads, barbed wire, and two kinds of grenades. Right here are the makin’s for a very nice poster for that weird guy at the flea market who sells WWI memorabilia and smells like cancer. The skull itself displays a resplendent brow, the sort of massive braincase you’d expect to house the hyper-intelligent brain of an ubermensch. But, isn’t it always the way that Poindexters like this are constantly losing shit, like their glasses or their lower jaws? This is probably why Germany lost the war.

The music:
If West Wall aren’t a neo-Nazi band, they’re as close as you can come without out and out heiling Hitler or including the word “Aryan” in your bandname. You could, if you were so inclined to delude yourself, simply read West Wall’s lyrics as being of a piece with, say, Hail of Bullets or Sabaton or any other band that sings about World War II. You could get away with this, even, if you didn’t know that members of West Wall were active in the skinhead scene, or you never saw a photo of the band fully costumed in totenkopf shirts, etc. You might, in that case, just think they were a run of the mill death metal band with a lot of songs about tanks. Panzer tanks. But, now you know, and if you can still listen to West Wall (named after the Siegfried Line) without feeling like a total shitheel, well, good for you, I guess.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL453

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PHANTASM, Keeper of Death (1993, Russian Disc)

The skull:
As promised with SKULL419, here is the successor to Russia’s Propeller. These guys really upgraded their aesthetics here. Of course, Phantasm is a much more awesome (if unoriginal) name than Propeller, and this skull is also mas macho. Whereas the Propeller pentagram was a kind of bladey thing, here we have barbed wire which is actually threaded through fissures in the skull (a nice touch!) Propeller featured what looked like a marionette skull, but Phantasm’s skull is clearly a badass dude. And while there’s still the issue of the too-big eyes, this guy makes up for it by dripping blood from his nose and mouth. Everything about this guy screams, “You motherfuckers thought you knew about death and pain? Well, you don’t know SHIT.”

The music:
Unfortunately, while Propeller got their look together when they changed to Phantasm, they sure as hell didn’t get their act in the studio together. This is the same kind of deathy thrash, but the sound is atrocious and the playing mysteriously sloppier. This was only recorded a year or so after that Propeller demo, but it sounds like it might have been made 5 years before. It’s a very strange regression for a band who, as of their demo, sounded like they knew what they were doing. That said, this being a proper LP and not a demo, it’s acquired a reputation as an underground classic in some circles, and if you like caveman death metal a la Master, then you might really go in for this, shitty production and all. Granted, you won’t find it for less than a small fortune, but spending hundred of bucks on a totally inessntial LP from Russia will make it sounds way more awesome, at least in your mind.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL452

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PLAGUE WARHEAD, Whores of Lucifer (2011, Godeater)

The skull:
If I’m reading into the deeply embedded subtext correctly, the upside crosses represent Lucifer and the skull is the whore. The skull’s eye holes are being penetrated by nine lascivious crosses — and a huge dagger cleaving through the skull’s head for good measure. This is perhaps the grossest violation of a skull’s orifices we have ever seen here at Big Dumb Skulls, although one wonders: why not some hot and nasty penetration of the nasal cavity? It’s a gaping hole just waiting to be sullied. Or maybe it’s just a skull with a bunch of crosses stuffed into its eyes — no pornographic overtones whatsoever. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, right? But that’s no fun…and that’s how hardened we’ve become here at BDS. Now anything less than nine crosses fucking dry eyeless sockets is going to seem pedestrian.

The music:
While they can confidently be called “death metal,” Plague Warhead’s riffing and drumming are far more thrash metal than the norm, so it is that the band are often dubbed “death/thrash.” And while calling Plague Warhead death/thrash automatically makes them seem unappealing (because of the zillions of death/thrash bands that suck), these guys are quite good at their chosen craft. It’s so 2002 up in this joint! There’s some particularly good bass playing and a few hair-raising moments of Slayer-esque dissonance in “Forces of Evil” (bet you’ve never seen a song title like that before), and again, they’re going to satisfy metal fans that want this exact sort of thing — they’re certainly better than 90% of other bands in this vein. That said, Plague Warhead delivers not a damn bit of individual personality to their music, so one listen and I’m done. Benny Larsson (Edge of Sanity, Pan-Thy-Monium) is the drummer here, and while I wouldn’t say he’s totally slumming, I’d say he’s mostly slumming. But when you’ve been in two bands that godly, where do you go from there? Plague Warhead, I guess. I’ll be waiting for them to write a song called “The Skull is the Whore,” and then — and only then — will I listen again.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL410

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ASYLIUM, An Architecture of Human Desolation  (2011, Necrotic)

The skull:
This Swedish band is extremely skull-friendly. We’ll get to the album cover in a sec, but we must note that their label (from Illinois, interestingly enough) has a logo that features a skull, and the guitarist in the band wears a hoodie that shows a humongous air-brushed skull on it. Good on ya, Fredrik Lundell! The cover itself is not too bad, although it’s hard to glean any real meaning from it. Just as the band’s pretty cool logo is entangled in barbed wire, so the skull is entangled in stringy black threads, perhaps the very threads of sanity, or perhaps the twig-like ends of tree branches that are also seen in the right half of the artwork background. The skull looks longingly off into the distance — this is yet another sub-set of Big Dumb Skull covers, the “contemplative side-view skull.” He apparently keeps up diligently with his dental hygiene, having a mouth full of gleaming white choppers.

The music:
I’m always skeptical when a Swedish death metal band is made up of members who have not played in any other bands (excepting their drummer, but his other two bands are ones you’ve never heard of). It’s just not the way this Swedish scene runs its business. So, how are they? They’re fine, thank you. No seriously, they’re fine. And, the more I listen, the more I think they’re a step or two above “fine.” They’re very heavy, with a scathing, super-intense thrash thread running through their death metal, almost as if Merciless reformed again and tried to outblast the modern death metal competition. Their guitar sound is less of the bloated, Grave-like/Dismember-esque sort of thing and more like Liers In Wait or the like, that sinewy, psychotic sound typical of the original Gothenburg bands. They really do resemble an updated version of Liers In Wait, and there’s a melodic progression that reminds me of Eucharist in “An Eternity of Human Decay.” They also recall the great and underrated Uncanny, complete with the ultra-seething, frantic momentum, super-abrupt time changes and otherworldly atmosphere. Vocally it’s all pretty deathly, nothing very distinctive but a good throaty delivery imbued with plenty of power; at the very least it lets you know this is very goddamned Swedish. Yep, if you dig Uncanny and Liers In Wait and want something along those lines with a slightly fuller, more modern production, Asylium and this album will fit the bill.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL218

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REVENGE, Triumph, Genocide, Antichrist  (2003, Osmose Productions)

The skull:
The leader of Revenge, James Read, is clearly a skull-worshipper. Another of his bands, Conqueror, is also enshrined in our Skullection (Skull155). And most Revenge releases feature a prominent skull doing something naughty, in the consistently uniform design that the band’s releases share. We won’t induct all of them, as the Council has a rule about such things, so it makes sense to go with the debut album. This cover design resembles the Conqueror album reviewed earlier in its bleak, spiky, barbed-wire, skully looking self. This little guy is encircled in barbed wire and seemingly mounted on King Diamond’s microphone holder. Cryptic and foreboding looking stuff.

The music:
Not that far away from Conqueror, actually, this album flies by in a hellish 31-minute smear. Totally gonzoid speed, equally apeshit vocals, bloodcurdling intensity everywhere…this is an exhausting listen, and while it’s fun for a few minutes, it gets old quick. And this from someone who can sit down and listen to Beherit, Nuclear Death and Sarcofago for hours. Yet Revenge is something else. It’s like that stuff, but 10 times more piercing, less organic, and just annoying. Maybe it’s the precision Angelcorpse-esque edge that turns me off (ie. boring after 5 minutes). It’s this monochromatic glaze that takes away any real vibrancy or attractiveness. Makes sense that Revenge sounds like Conqueror meets Angelcorpse, because Pete Helmkamp was a member of Revenge at this point. Crazy fuckers playing crazy music. Not for the faint of heart.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL155

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CONQUEROR, War Cult Supremacy (2011, Nuclear War Now!)

The skull:
This album was originally released in 1999 with a different, non-skull cover. The one pictured here is from the Nuclear War Now box set reissue, and we like it a lot. Yet, as feral as Conqueror’s music is, it’s sort of a dopey looking cover…the single strand of barbed wire is not very threatening, and the skull itself is an oblong, flattened dome, looking kinda sad plopped on top of bones; appears to have belonged to a midget or dwarf. Even their logo is kinda lame. But still this cover — resplendent in fire engine red — somehow works well to communicate this band is no-bullshit death noise; you get that they’re not doing any Motley Crue covers or something equally as silly.

The music:
I have a deep love for primitive noise from late ’80s/early ’90s bands like Nuclear Death, Sarcofago, and Order From Chaos (their forebears being stuff like Voivod’s second album, early Sodom and Bathory’s second and third), so I really should be flipping out over Canada’s Conqueror. They attempted to carry on deathly metal noise in a similar vein, and while I respect what they’re doing, it’s so sharp and scathing and utterly monotonous that it ends up sounding like Sadistik Exekution and less like the more organic mess of the aforementioned earlier bands. But I can hang, and actually get more out of this album now than when it was originally released. It’s a blinding smear of piercing treble-drenched guitar and well-played drum blasts, with completely unhinged vocals that spit pure venom. The fact that Conqueror featured a member of the mighty Blasphemy provides a link between the earlier primitives and this newer strain of ridiculous intensity. The slightly more popular Revenge is essentially the successor band to Conqueror, but they’re even less interesting than Conqueror. Best song? “Kingdom Against Kingdom,” as it’s the most over-the-top, which is saying something on an album like this. They also do Slaughter and Sarcofago covers on this album, so you know they’re pretty damn committed to this insanity. By the end of its 46 minutes you’re completely fatigued and want to just sit in silence for a while.
— 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