Tag Archives: black and white

SKULL651

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GRIMLAIR, Au Commencement De L’Ombre (2009, Self Mutilation Services)

The skull:
This faded, ghoulish fellow looks at first glance to be wearing some kind of hood or cowl, but in fact it’s a mortarboard, worn insouciantly far back on his dome. If that doesn’t make any sense, perhaps you didn’t realize that the proper English title of this release should be “At the Commencement of the Hombre,” but due to some confusion as to how to operate Google Translate, it came out (in French) as The Beginning of Shadow. It’s a mistake anyone could have made.

The music:
You’d never guess that this is one-man bedroom black metal, would you? Oh, you would? What gave it away? Oh, right. Everything. This is raw and awful, but I think it’s supposed to sound raw and awful. It’s not that Cadavre (the one-man) is totally incompetent, it’s just that he loves terrible music, and is very good at recreating the shit he likes. I’ll give him a couple extra points, even, for playing real drums, even if it kinda sounds like he’s playing them at the same time as the guitars, the way it used to work in one-man bands. Anyway, if you like shitty, sloppy, drenched-in-verb black metal, then maybe you’ll like this. I mean, who knows? People with rotten taste are hard to predict.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL594

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TOXIFIX, Rise from the Ashes (2011, Gravedigger)

The skull:
I suppose the ashes from which this skull has arisen are the ones in the hospital incinerator. Fortunately he’s still labeled as a biohazard (that fireproof paint was a smart investment), so if you see him, steer clear. He might have hepatitis C or meningitis or something. Prevention is the best medicine.

The music:
Rise from the Ashes is a bedroom demo of slightly blackend thrash metal. It’s mostly okay, I guess. When the band sticks to the thrash, it’s completely generic and utterly forgettable, but when they mix in more modern black and death metal sounds, as on “Gravedigger,” they start to approach something interesting. The vocals, however, are shit throughout, a sort of black metal frog croak run through pretty much every effect you can imagine. As is basically always the case when the vocals are this awful, they come courtesy of the main songwriter (usually the guitarist), whose ego is clearly too bloated to admit that he cannot do it all. So yeah, with a little musical polish, a better studio, and basically any other singer they could find, Toxifix could probably have grown into something interesting, but they broke up in 2013, so this is it, and it’s not much.
— Friar Johnsen

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LIMB, demo 2012 (2012, demo)

The skull:
Take away the fuzzy shit in the background (it looks like the artist just shook his dryer’s lint trap over his scanner) and this is a pretty bare cover. That dust makes all the difference. But: King Diamond wants his little symbol back. I know he got it from Anton LaVey, but King’s pretty much trademarked it in the heavy metal space, so don’t be intruding on his jam, Limb.

The music:
Ah, fuzzed-out doom. It’s been a while! You’re looking well. You still sound like shit, but you are what you are, I suppose. What’s new? Ha ha, I’m only kidding. I know nothing’s new. No one’s done anything new since Vol. 4 amiright? Okay, okay, fair enough – “sludge” is newer than that. So who are these kids you’re hanging out with now? Limb? Not the sharpest tools in the shed, huh? And that singer, jeez. Yeah, I saw the bassist’s SG. Very authentic, I guess. A little cliche, though, don’t you think? Well, sure, I bet they’re all really nice people, but does the world really need another band like this? No, I was asking rhetorically. Of course you’d say yes! Anyway, it was nice to see you again. Take it easy. I’m sure I’ll catch you around soon enough.
— Friar Johnsen

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ELEGY FOR EULISZA, demo 2005 (2005, demo)

The skull:
Alas, poor Eulisza! I knew her, Horatio. Like, in the biblical sense. She hath borne me on her back a thousand times, you know what I’m saying? Woof! And now she’s dead, gross. Here hung those lips that I kissed I know not how oft. With tongue, all the way! Where be your good vibes now? Now get you to my old lady’s chamber and tell her, let her cut a line an inch thick, with that party favor she must come! Aw yeah.

The music:
I can’t be sure I’ve actually heard anything from this demo, but two of the tracks on Myspace (which still exists, believe it or not, and is an invaluable time capsule for us Friars who are occasionally tasked with sampling the least noteworthy bands of the mid 2000s) are dated from 2005, so let’s just assume they were released on the demo in question. Judging from those, Elegy for Eulisza were a not-entirely-terrible melodic death metal band, kind of like a sloppy throwback to early Dark Tranquillity. Their singer, however, is entirely terrible, an inarticulate screamer whose voice might also be distorted by effects. There’s something refreshing in hearing a band attempt rather complex music without incredible precision – nowadays, just about any mistake can be fixed after the fact at even cheap (or home) studios, but I guess in 2005, these guys didn’t have the time or budget to corrections (which reminds me, again, of early Dark Tranquillity, whose music was just a bit too hard for them to play perfectly.) The two later songs on Myspace, from 2007, sound almost like a different band. Though they retain some of the noodly MDM of the 2005 demo, most of the music is instead more like crusty grind. The band may or may not still be together, but it probably doesn’t matter, because they’re clearly not going anywhere.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL583

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BLASPHMACHINE, Hell (2012, demo)

The skull:
Sometimes I’m absolutely sure I’ve seen a skull before, and this time I was so convinced I had that I went back through the archives to find its dopelganger, to no avail. This bears some passing resemblance to covers by Conqueror and Revenge (and one of the members of Blasphmachine is pictured on Metal Archives in a Revenge shirt, so the similarity is probably not coincidental) but it’s not exactly like anything we’ve seen to date. So, I guess, kudos to Blasphmachine for making the most derivative-seeming but apparently original Big Dumb Skull yet. This is a dubious honor to stake, but bands like this will take their acclaim where they can get it.

The music:
I’m struggling to remember if I’ve ever enjoyed a rehearsal room demo. Nothing comes to mind, and Blasphmachine’s lone demo Hell isn’t changing that. As grindy death metal goes, I’d say they’re not the worst, but when your tunes are a blur of white noise by design, every last bit of fidelity you can achieve in the studio is helpful for turning your blasting nonsense into something resembling music. For some reason, bands that sound like this are always referred to as “black/death metal” but I don’t hear any black metal at all in their sound. Maybe they like Satan, though. Who knows, or cares? Now, Blasphmachine are from Malaysia, and maybe it’s incredibly hard to record a heavy metal demo there, and so maybe they’re to be commended for grinding this out (so to speak), but that doesn’t really help Hell go down any smoother. I’ll give them some points for including some kind of intro on “Bless the Fall,” though; it sounds like they just played some horror movie on the TV in their rehearsal space and recorded it through the air to their boombox. That’s commitment to the bit. But, ironic chuckles notwithstanding, there just isn’t much to recommend this.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL576

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VISE MASSACRE, Expendable Humans  (2012, self-released)

The skull:
It was just a few short years ago that the kid who would go on to be the drummer of Vise Massacre sat there in art class, despondent in front of a lump of clay. Then the lightbulb went on — he swiftly fashioned the grimmest clay head the teacher had ever seen. Raiding the teacher’s desk, lunchbox and supply cabinet in an inspired frenzy, he tossed together an unholy assemblage of clay, oatmeal, Chicklets gum and covered the mess in sticky white paint. Behold!!!

The music:
A bunch of hootin’ and hollerin’ happenin’ on this 15-song album from New York City’s Vise Massacre. Not sure which borough they hail from, but I’m guessing Brooklyn. And if I had to put money on an even more exact location, I’d go with…um…let’s go with Williamsburg. So, Expendable Humans looks like punk/death/grind/crust on the surface, and that’s the basic ballpark, but it’s much less noisy and far cleaner than I imagined it would be going in. Imagine a well-recorded, modern, streamlined Amebix re-recording the Monolith album, with Napalm Death’s Danny Herrera on drums and  a vocalist who took the style of Believer’s Kurt Bachman (in the Sanity Obscure era) and intensified it by a thousand. There you have Vise Massacre. There’s a technical element to some of this that makes it stand out from the legions of other bands aligning themselves with NYC crust/grind/death/punk, as heard in the precision-controlled tumult of “Eyes of Fire.” The brief English Dogs-ish guitar breaks in “Hail to the Wicked” are pretty cool too. There are some good riffs scattered throughout, and it manages to keep the interest most of the way through, but Expendable Humans wears out its welcome near the end. And the vocals become tiresome by the fifth song or so, but at least Vise Massacre aren’t as typical as their name, album title and imagery promises. That’s something.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL556

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PIG IRON, Blues + Power = Destiny (2010, Sounds of Caligula)

The skull:
“Dude, that’s a badass tat! Mind if I take a picture? I want to use it for the cover of my band’s next album.” “Cool, dude! Hey, just come down to the shop where I got it. My bro Jimmy there has a book full of sweet-ass skull tattoo ideas, and that’s where I saw this. You can probably get a better picture from the book.” “Awesome, man, that’d rule!” “So, what is your band like?” “I think it’s pretty hard to categorize us, but some people have said we’re like Skynrd meets Sabbath.” “That sounds awesome! Do you play concerts around here?” “Yeah, man, we’ll be at the VFW this weekend for the whole-hog roast!” “Killer! I’ll try to check it out!” “Yeah, man, I think you’ll really dig it!”

The music:
This is only metal in the loosest sense, and in fact I’d probably just call it southern rock, but I guess there’s a kind of stoner, Sabbathy thing going on here (think Sabbath at their hippiest, though) and I guess that’s good enough. Good enough to get into the Skullection, that is. Not good enough to entertain me. I will grant that Pig Iron sound like they are doing their chosen style well, but that style doesn;t do much for me. I will say one thing: I’d rather listen to this than any of the bellbottom doom acts lighting candles on top of Orange amplifiers. As retro shit goes, that is the absolute worst. This is just the second worst.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL531

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GRAVEYARD, Philosophies of the Reality and Displaced Souls (1997, demo)

The skull:
A lazier BDS you’d be hard pressed to find, but I’ll give them the logo: it’s pretty cool. About the only thing I can think to say about this skull is that it looks a little like it’s sporting some weird hipster moustache/sideburns kinda thing. I really can’t explain what that fuzz on the skull’s left could be besides douchey facial hair, but maybe the lesson here (and the connection to at least the last half of the title) is that neither heaven nor hell can abide by ironic whiskers.

The music:
Trying to parse this title, you would naturally be forgiven for assuming this Graveyard (of the many, many Graveyards) spoke English as a second language, but no, they hailed from New York and evidently just weren’t very good with words. For what it’s worth, they didn’t much play music like Americans either, sounding more like fourth rate Swedes peddling sloppy and disorganized death metal with occasional doomy touches. Which is to say, they sounded like a really bad Furbowl, and that’s no one’s idea of a good time. Honestly, I can get behind the basic vibe here, but the playing is so bad and the songs so drowning in incompetent blasting that the good riffs are like island oases in a sea of shit. The vocals have an appealing L.G. Petrovian sound to them, but when the vocals are the best thing about your death metal band (hello Comecon!) you should really just stop. This was the last Graveyard demo before they were laid to rest, unsigned and unloved, and for everyone’s sake I hope they enrolled in some GED prep classes in their free time thereafter.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL527

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SUCKING VOID, The Scavenger (2012, demo)

The skull:
The stupid logo is a dead giveaway that this is a modern release, but this art could otherwise totally have fronted some cult death metal demo from the late 80s, passed from trader to trader in increasingly rotten-sounding dubs, the cover getting more and more washed out as the Xerox generations pile up. Scratched, cracked, dripping, and covered in crawly things, not to mention stretched like a necro El Greco, this skull looks to be having an absolutely shitty afterlife, and we’re actually seeing him here in the prime of his digitally distributed glory. Sucking Void Skull, you don’t know how good you’ve got it!

The music:
The Scavenger sounds like Earache Records 1990, an even mix of Harmony Corruption, Symphonies of Sickness, and the faster moments on Warmaster, but with a modern production that surprisingly doesn’t deflate the oldschool vibe. The riffing is a little basic at times, and the vocals less than charismatic, but this kind of oldschool stuff really gets me off, and Sucking Void remain committed throughout to songcraft in a way that modern death metal rarely does. The playing is sharp and everything sounds really great here, much better than most death metal, in fact. I didn’t expect much from this short demo with a silly cover, but Sucking Void are surprisingly not to be fucked with. Highly recommended if you enjoy the aforementioned oldies.
— Friar Johnsen

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VENEMOUS CONCEPT, Retroactive Abortion (2004, Ipecac)

The skull:
“Hey dudes, check out my awesome collage art. I made it from a bunch of 60s Life magazines I found at my grandma’s house, and I think it really makes a statement about war and shit. Yeah, that old bitch is just some cog in the Republican, mainstream meachine, so I didn’t feel bad stealing her old shit, or also this bottle of creme de menthe, so let’s get fucking wasted and listen to Poison Idea!”

The music:
Venemous Concept are a grindcore project from Kevin Sharp, Shane Embury, Danny Herrara, and Buzz Osbourne, and they sound 100% exactly like you’d imagine they’d sound. Actually, they sound 100% exactly like you’d imagine they’d sound just from looking at the cover art. Grindcore is nothing if not predictable. Also, Dan Lilker joined after this album. Like I said: predictable.
— Friar Johnsen