SKULL113

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

KOZELJNIK, Wrecked in Ruins of Solitude (2007, Spiritual WarArt Productions)

The skull:
A shitty low-contrast photo of a skull, washed out in a murk of very dark aquamarine. Is this skull’s solitude ruinous? It’s hard to say. He looks a little wrecked, maybe, but I think that’s more on the hands of the designer than on the solitude. Big, dumb, and ugly.

The music:
Here at Skull HQ, Friar Wagner and I generally tackle skulls on an even/odd basis. We occasionally mix it up, but generally we’re at the mercy of a skull’s divisibility by two. By pure coincidence, most of the primitive/raw/underground black metal has landed in Friar Wagner’s queue, which has worked out well considering his greater familiarity with black metal. But, with skull113, my number is up, and I’m forced to confront a release that’s pretty far outside my wheelhouse. My interest in black metal tends toward the progressive and well produced. Darkthrone enthusiasts need not knock on the door of Friar Johnsen. So, when confronted with this sort of Eastern European, tr00, kvlt, black-as-in-darkness-and-evil kind of stuff, I’m somewhat at a loss. Listening to Kozeljnik, about all I can tell you is that they sound like a lot of other bands. Unfortunately, I can’t really tell you which bands they are. This isn’t even bad stuff (well, two of the four tracks are rehearsal recordings, and one of those is a cover, and those are at a minimum unnecessary), but fuck if I can say more than that. This isn’t Darkthrone-style primitivism — there are a lot of riffs and some interesting ones at that — but there also aren’t any surprising elements on offer. The production is buzzy and raw but not confrontationally no-fi, and while the playing is rough around the edges, it’s not amateur-level sloppy. To me, this is like hundreds of other ill-defined black metal bands, and since Wrecked… came out in 2007, it’s virtually guaranteed that none of the ideas hereby presented are even remotely original. So if you want to learn more about this band from Big Dumb Skulls, you’ll just have to keep your fingers crossed that the band releases another cover with a skull, and that it lands on the even pile. So, maybe check this space in early 2015.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL82

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Friar Wagner

SKULLDEMON, Demons of the Black Abyss (2005, demo)

The skull:
One of the most obscure pieces in the Skullection, this cover comes from a band buried way down deep in the underground of Finnish black metal. It’s simple as hell, assembled in junior high homeroom, perhaps. Kinda Olde English style font for band name and demo title, with a negative image of a skull slapped onto a particularly un-evil looking background (a pattern more appropriate for bathroom tile than unholy hymns to the dark one). The two tiny horns on top are apparently an attempt at evilness, but it’s all pretty Mickey Mouse level stuff in the end.

The music:
Total one-man band bedroom black metal right here, complete with programmed drums. Buzzing and raw, the songs operate at a variety of tempos (moderate medium tempo to repetitive blasting). The vocals offer slight diversity, the most interesting approach being a hilarious throaty bellow that sounds like a cross between Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch and Sam Kinison. Inspired by Burzum and Bathory, no doubt, but not at all inspiring. Pointless, but thanks for the skull, buddy!
— Friar Wagner

SKULL77

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

BRUTISH CREATION, Death Pursues Us (2006, Macabre Mastermind)

The skull:
Big, dumb, and framed by two very terrible fonts. I read an article recently which suggested the overbite that pretty much everyone has (meaning, when you close your mouth all the way, your lower teeth nestle behind your upper teeth in the front) is a relatively recent phenomenon, caused (it is hypothesized) by the use of utensils. This guy here appears to lack this overbite, so perhaps this skull predates the widespread adoption of utensils? If the skull is Death himself, then I guess that would make sense. Death don’t need no fork.

The music:
Bob Egler is Brutish Creation, and Bob Egler is not very good at music. Obviously recorded in Bob’s bedroom, featuring a cheap drum machine and beats no actual drummer could (or would) play, Death Pursues Us is a grim slab of thrashy death metal (or deathy thrash metal: take your pick) that reminds me distantly of early Sepultura, although I can’t say exactly why. It’s certainly not the riffing, or the songwriting, or the vocals (which Bob belts out charmlessly), but I guess maybe the guitar tone sorta reminds me of the Brazilians? Who knows. This demo-level recording is a tough listen, and while Bob’s produced a few more “albums” since this, I have no interest whatsoever in knowing if he got any better.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL75

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

NILE, Festivals of Atonement (1995, Anubis Music)

The skull:
Straight outta some book Karl Sanders found at the library, with the yellow cranked to maximum, for some reason. Sure, it’s a nice looking skull, big and dumb, nestled in a cozy niche, but what does it have to do with festivals of atonement? Maybe festivals in ancient Egypt were very different from what I’m imagining.

The music:
This was Nile’s first self-released EP, and as such, they sound even more like Morbid Angel than they did when they became death metal famous. There are some intros with the eastern scales that Karl Sanders later made his stock in trade, but in the main, Morbid Angel + Suffocation more or less sums this up. I dig the dirgey “Wrought”, which features some passably good semi-melodic vocals and a rather ridiculous synth flute solo, and the equally draggy “Extinction” is also pretty cool. The faster numbers don’t interest me as much, but at least Nile at this point in time weren’t obsessed with proving how fast or evil (or whatever) they were, which increasingly became the case with their albums. This is just not my speed when it comes to death metal, but for such an early recording, it’s pretty obvious that this was a band who had their shit together far more than most bands do at that stage. This EP was later reissued with 1997’s Ramses Bringer of War as In the Beginning, and nowadays the band affects (for some reason) to describe their Egyptophile music as “Ithyphallic metal,” which is insanely pretentious (and borderline nonsensical), but if you just read that as “Ichthyphallic metal,” it’s all worth it.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL73

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

NIGHTSTALKER, Superfreak (2009, Meteor City)

The skull:
Sepia-toned, a smallish skull in the middle of a some kind of sunburst pattern, set with retro typefaces that scream, “Are you ready to rock… and trip BALLS?” There are all kinds of little embellishments in the margins of the cover that do nothing but muddy the pristine laziness of the design. Who associates skulls with superfreaks, anyway? “Alas, poor Rick James! I knew him, Horatio.” Google “skull album cover” and you’ll be surprised how many are out there, ready to buy, with text like, “BAND LOGO HERE” helpfully set in the mockup. All those covers look basically like this one.

The music:
Stoner rock of the Monster Magnet variety. What’s to add? You can hear it in your head already. Some fuzz bass, some Orange amps, some nasal midrange crooning, some tambourines, some cowbell, some lyrics that include the word “mama”. There’s a stereotype of the stoner who’s just too burned out to know what’s going on around him, or to give a shit. This is the musical expression of that stereotype. “Is this a… what day is this? Is this Nightstalker? Whatever, man.” Yeah.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL53

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

DETENTE, History I (2008, Cognitive)

The skull:
A big red skull (but not the Red Skull), hastily pasted onto a black background with some red ravens, or something. A faint glow-line surrounds the skull which is not so much an aesthetic effect as an artifact of poor matting in Photoshop, and this glow is thematically reinforced by the zen-like ugliness of the generic, free font in which the text was set. The (jawless) skull itself was probably originally done in charcoal, and as big dumb skulls go, it’s a fine example (central and unadorned) but it probably could have been bigger. Compilations like this are a perennial occasion for BDSery, but even by the low standards of the cash-in demo compilation, this cover stands out for its laziness and ineptitude.

The music:
History I collects Detente’s first demo, and several demos by Catalepsy, the band formed by the three guys fired at once by singer Dawn Crosby. Since there are six Catalepsy tunes to only four by Detente, it would have made more sense to call this a Catalepsy release, but of course no one knows who they were, while Detente are still a warmly remembered second-tier thrash band from the golden years. All four Detente tracks appeared on the band’s classic Recognize No Authority album, and the sound quality here is actually quite good for a demo rescued from the clutches of 1985. The Catalepsy tracks are also fairly well preserved, and they do faithfully continue in the tradition of the Detente album. The main appeal of this band was always the barbed-wire vocals of Crosby, so it’s actually fairly surprising how similar in sound and effectiveness her Catalepsian counterpart, Veronica Ross, is on her tracks. Both women bring an unchained, but still vaguely melodic charisma to the well written but hardly original thrash that was the stock and trade of Detente. Catalepsy included drummer Dave McClain, later of S.A. Slayer, Sacred Reich, and Machine Head, and both Detente and Catalepsy were anchored by guitarist Ross Robinson, who went on to fame and fortune as a producer, bestowing on the world such immortal classics as Korn’s self-titled debut and Limp Bizkit’s Three Dollar Bill, Yall$. So, it’s fair to say that it wasn’t Robinson who threw this disc together, as he sure as shit doesn’t need the money.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL47

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

HYPOCRISY, Into the Abyss (2000, Nuclear Blast)

The skull:
A dirty, jawless skull in the crosshairs of some kind of reticle, or possibly trapped in a game of Tempest, either emanating or absorbing some weak-looking lightning bolts, and floating over a background of… some brown junk? Dirty pipes or something? Who knows. A skull this lazy just doesn’t have the energy to explain his environment. He’s like, “Man, what do you want from me? I don’t get a say here. I needed some money quick to take care of some shit, and they’re like, ‘Just go float over there, by the red glow,’ and I’m like, whatever, dudes. When do I get paid?”

The music:
If ever a band deserved such a nondescript cover, it was Hypocrisy in the early 00s. Not that their music was terrible or anything, but the meat-and-potatoes death metal with keyboards thing they were peddling at this time was pretty damned uninspired. They had gotten past the “we’re so fucking evil and brutal” out of their system fairly early, and the style of the slow and odd “Fourth Dimension” (my personal favorite Hypocrisy album) evidently didn’t have any staying power. When they settled into the mid-paced middle of their career, it was clear they didn’t really have any particularly good ideas, so they just went with the death metal trends of the day and played the basketball beat over a dozen interchangeable, trebly, black-metal style riffs played high on the fretboard. That is, when they weren’t striving for some buzzy groove, which mainman Peter Tägtgren’s signature ultra-high-gain production rendered in the least comfortable tones possible. It was never really awful listening to Hypocrisy, but it was rarely any fun.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL45

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

REPUGNANT, Hecatomb (1999, To The Death)

The skull:
Small, but feisty, this little guy looks a bit cracked up and leers dumbly at you with his one eye. While the Council ordinarily disqualifies skulls that are obviously a part of a larger skeleton, the tiny fragment of spine, unencumbered by shoulder blades or any other bony bits, was found to not distract from the centrality of the skull. Considering the emptiness of the cover, it is felt that the skull could have been bigger, but since “hecatomb” originally meant the sacrificial slaughter of 100 cattle, the dumbness of this singular skull compensated for its meager smallness.

The music:
Formed in 1998, Repugnant more or less labored in obscurity, but if they had been formed a decade earlier, they would have been immediately signed to Earache, sounding as they do on this EP like a cross between Nihilist and Terrorizer (in their less blasty moments), with dashes of early Death and Celtic Frost. Considering how well worn this territory was then and continues to be, Repugnant pull it off with striking conviction and integrity. The production is raw, and certainly evocative of the era Hecatomb means to recall, but it’s also not off-puttingly retro or lo-fi. The drumming is lively and competent in a modern sense, without affecting the old-school sound of the beats. Amusingly, singer and guitarist Mary Goore was also in the retro sleaze metal act Crashdïet, which shows that as a heavy metal nostalgia hound, his tastes run the gamut. As long as the style is outdated, he’s into it.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL33

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

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

SKULL31

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

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