Tag Archives: blood

SKULL415

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MORDANT, Momento Mori (2004, Agonia)

The skull:
This art has the cute handmade look of someone who just learned to silkscreen last semester. It’s a striking design that would work well on a shirt, aside from the ugly logo that was clearly pasted in after the fact. It’s a nice touch that the pool of blood appears to be skulltears. I guess when you don’t have eyelids or any other soft tissue on your face, the tears just pour out in a single stream. This is just one of the many day-to-day things a skull has to deal with that have literally never occurred to me before. My long tenure in the service of The Council has certainly made me more empathetic to such skullish concerns.

The music:
Ever wonder what it would sound like to cross Motley Crue and Bathory? How you answer that question will more or less predict how much you like Mordant, who trade in a nearly even mix of early black metal and L.A. proto-hair metal. The mix works pretty well, all things considered. You get a kind of raspy growl, not entirely unlike early David Vincent, on top of riffs that Mick Mars could easily play, and which pedal on the A string instead of the E (or whatever the hell they’re tuned to. I don’t have perfect pitch and I’m not going to bother to figure this out right now.) The production is super boxy and bass-heavy but it sounds cheap in more or less the ways people like, when they listen to goofy retro shit like this. My research indicates that Mordant are frequently compared to Nifelheim, but that’s a band I never cared for, so I can’t say one way or the other, but I guess if this is what Nifelheim sounds like, well, maybe I’d like them if I tried again. Who knows. It’s not that Mordant is my new favorite thing ever, and I probably won’t even buy it, but listening to Memento Mori for this review wasn’t at all unpleasant. It’s hard to ask for more in this line of work!
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL390

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MYSTIC PROPHECY, Ravenlord (2011, Massacre)

The skull:
If this dude is the Ravenlord, he might want to start looking for a successor. Bleeding from the head is never good, especially when all you’ve got left of your corporeal existence is a skull. You’re pretty much reaching the end at that point. The wings that sprout from behind his head are apparently attached to him, and perhaps these are acting as his deliverance to some unspecified afterlife-type location. Who the fuck knows. The ravens shown in mirror image above the wings: are these Polar Ravens? Because they look snowy. With all the occult-ish nonsense in the background, I’m starting to think this cover was supposed to look evil, but really I just want to be the good samaritan, get a big Band-Aid for the dude’s head and continue on my way.

The music:
This band are known largely as the place where modern-day guitar hero Gus G. got his start. They’ve been prolifically releasing albums since 2001, and this one is their seventh. I haven’t paid much attention to these guys over the years, and while I’m still not gonna be running out to complete my M.P. collection, Mystic Prophecy definitely have some worth. In general they resemble a heavier, darker Nocturnal Rites, with all the modernisms N.R. started introducing with the introduction of vocalist Jonny Lindqvist and the Afterlife album (in no way, shape or form am I saying they’re that good. Nobody will ever beat Afterlife at its own game. Every metal fan should own it). Should Nocturnal Rites ever part with Jonny, they can get this Roberto Dimitri Liapakis guy, because the two are very similar. Gruff yet with excellent melodic ability, delivered with a ton of passion and power. It’s not hard to fall under the spell of his melodies on something like “Eyes of the Devil.” He works some similarly mighty magic throughout, always coming across as a Jonny Lindqvist/Mats Leven sort of singer with a penchant for catchy, AOR-esque melodies. He’s the clear highlight here. While you’re guaranteed some galvanizing double-bass driven rhythms and colorful lead work with some nasty tones, their chug-chug-chug style of riffery is far too bland and gets old really quick. You can look at it as a platform for Liapakis to perform upon, but riffs in power metal bands shouldn’t be relegated to background scenery. It all gets a bit repetitive by fourth song “Damned Tonight,” but the vocalist keeps you listening intently all the way through final song “Back With the Storm,” although they almost lost me with penultimate track “Miracle Man” (yes, the Ozzy Osbourne song). Even though Mystic Prophecy is German, they’re an honorary Swedish band as far as I’m concerned, considering all the references to great Swedish melodic heavy metal bands in their music. On a final note: the band’s album-titling pattern is getting stale. Lots of cutely “dark” invented compound words: Fireangel, Ravenlord, Killhammer. My money’s on Thundertoaster for the next one.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL331

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OBSZÖN GESCHÖPF, Day of Suffering (2000, demo)

The skull:
There are plenty of logo-chomping skulls out there, and this one at first glance appears no different from any other, but look close and you’ll notice that the bottom jaw is scaled completely differently from the rest of the skull. It’s got mismatched dentition, too. I have to assume that either the top or the bottom was different at one point, probably the top, but after the artist scaled it back from whatever idiotic monster he originally drew, he forgot to similarly update the bottom half, leaving us with the chimeric skull we see here. That’s exactly the kind of inattention to detail that can elevate a Big Dumb Skull from the ordinary to the sublime, and while I won’t say that this cover has been so elevated, I must nevertheless applaud its dauntless stupidity.

The music:
This is simplistic and fairly boring electronic industrial music on to which boxy, heavy guitars have been grafted. The guitar parts can hardly be called riffs, as they are mostly single-chord chugs to go along with the bloopy keyboards and do little aesthetic work beyond signifying that Obszön Geschöpf are metal in some way. There are some guitar solos as well, but these are hilariously bad. They’re played poorly per se, but they are comically out of place amid the bargain basement techno thumps and square wave burps. Obszön Geschöpf are basically a one-man band, but hillariously it’s a French guy trying to toughen up his image with a German band name (and he even got that wrong, failing to properly decline the adjective; the name translates to “Obscene Creature.”) I’ve written about industrial metal before, and I’ve gone on record saying that it’s fairly hard to do the style well, but this demo is never in any danger of crossing the fine line between stupid and clever.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL253

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SODOM, Obsessed by Cruelty (1986, Metal Blade)

The skull:
According to Tom Angelripper, the original concept for this cover was a skull in near total darkness, limned only by the sheen of blood running over it. That would have been a pretty awesome cover. But that is not the cover Tom got. Instead he got a wax skull with a tree growing out of the top, a couple of weird, thumbless claw hands, and some stuff that is probably supposed to be blood but which looks more like the goopy icing used to spell out messages on the tops of cakes. It’s a classic cover, to be sure, if not for the best of reasons.

The music:
This entire album was recorded twice, because the first version was deemed unreleasable. Yet, released it was (allegedly due to some kind of mix-up), and if you’re familiar with this album, you probably only know the original recording. But before you start worrying, “You mean, there’s a good sounding version of Obsessed by Cruelty out there and I’ve never heard it?” fret not. The re-recording also sounds like ass. Only the original Steamhammer LP preserves the second recording, and if you’re a fan of the album, it’s probably worth seeking out, if only for the bass solo in “Equinox”. It really must be heard to be believed. The Steamhammer version also includes the track “After the Deluge,” which was promised, but not delivered on the original version. The playing is maybe a little tighter on the second version, too, but really, this was not the work of competent musicians. After all, this is a large part of the appeal of early Sodom, or Hellhammer, or whatever other raw, cult band you can think of. They made it sound like anyone could be in a band (see also: Sex Pistols). I’m a Sodom fan from way back, but for me, the good Sodom doesn’t start until Frank Blackfire joined the band. That said, I was unfairly dismissive of this album for too long. The bad sound and atrocious playing obscured from me the (now fairly obvious) roots of the band that would make Persecution Mania. Yes, Blackfire helped a lot, but he wasn’t solely responsible for Sodom’s sudden greatness come 1986. Any decent guitarist, and any good engineer, might have steered the Sodom of Obsessed by Cruelty to the heights of Persecution Mania, as in fact the excellent live version of the title track on Mortal Way of Live demonstrates. Probably too many terrible thrash and black metal bands have been built around the idea that Obsessed by Cruelty is a great album on its own merits, but certainly the seeds of greatness were there, even if they mostly remained unsprouted.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL248

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CALIBRE 38, Calibre 38  (1988, Heavy Discos)

The skull:
Look at this cover. See how dodgy it is. Now imagine that, 11 years later, it was released on CD with a very similar skull cover, yet even more dodgily rendered! (“Dodgily” is not a real word, but it is in the land of Big Dumb Skulls.) We’re sticklers here at BDS, so let’s examine the original: It would appear this skull has some blood left in it from the long-gone fleshly remains, enough to have sprayed “Calibre” on that white piece of driftwood (or chewing gum stick) above the skull. The gun (apparently a .38 caliber pistol) possesses the magical power of levitation. But what’s pulling the trigger? The lousily-drawn skull has no answers; he’s one of the dumbest and clueless specimens we’ve come across, so no point trying to get answers out of him. At least the “artist” added some fire and lightning. You can’t lose with fire, lightning, guns and blood.

The music:
You wanna talk about “dodgy,” you’ve come to the right place. This 37-minute album features 6 over-long songs that sound very much like the product of excited young heavy metal fans with barely-adequate talent hashing together riffs stolen from their favorite NWOBHM obscurities. The vocals are the worst part of this thing: yelping, ridiculous, impossible to appreciate. This is very much in the strictest NWOBHM tradition, complete with its rawness and naivete, although none of these songs make much sense, their arrangements ranging from haphazard to absolutely confused. (Kind of rare that a metal band from Brazil was playing anything but death/thrash/black metal in 1988.) Opener “Futura Passagem” benefits from being the shortest track here, in that they have less time to go astray. So it’s a good choice as opener. Closer “Tempestade” opens with the storm sounds of “Black Sabbath,” so similar that they might be sampled from the original 1970 recording, I’d have to A/B that to make sure (not that I’m actually going to waste anymore time with this thing than I have to). The opening riff in “Tempestade” sounds like they inverted the famous main riff to “Smoke on the Water.” I’m not saying “Tempestade” is a highlight of Calibre 38, I’m just saying stuff about it because there’s something to say. There are no highlights here. Don’t waste your time.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL216

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LORD HAUNTED, Bang ‘Em Till Bleed the Bone  (2007, demo)

The skull:
We have a winner here people. This prehistoric-looking skull appears to be a product of inbreeding. Just guessing. What an honor it must be, then, to be draped in a bullet belt and have a boot coming down on your head to try to, apparently, “bleed the bone.” And damned if the boot isn’t winning! We have here yet another demo band actually volunteering to place the parental advisory sticker on their album cover. (See also Skull210) It threatens to ruin everything, but this cover’s so awesome, not even that can diminish its greatness. So, till next time: bang ’em till bleed the bone and, uh, fist pump it till…um…till scrape the flesh.

The music:
The fact that Lord Haunted covers Manilla Road’s “Dig Me No Grave” should tell you all you need to know about their musical preferences. It’s an interesting cover choice, something from one of Manilla’s least-celebrated albums (The Courts of Chaos). The four other songs are all originals, and even if the cover art looks more like a dirty black/thrash kind of thing, this is pure epic traditional metal; none of these songs would have been out of place on any of those early Metal Massacre compilations. There’s an especially strong whiff of California’s Tyrant here, if that helps. When he’s in screaming mode, vocalist Marcos Fazzio often sounds uncannily similar to Artillery’s Flemming Ronsdorf, which is kinda cool, because you don’t hear that often. Lord Haunted is not bad, most the songs have a good bit of depth, lots of interesting parts, and the the dudes have the skills to pull it off. If the already-mentioned bands are your thing, as well as Omen, Helstar, Dio and Mercyful Fate, you could do worse. You won’t hear anything original either, but you probably weren’t expecting to.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL214

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BLOODY SKIZZ, Gods Breaker / Bloody Road to Death  (1982, Belgravia)

The skull:
This skull is served with the works: an inverted crucifix, wings seemingly fashioned from metal or driftwood, an axe, a lightning bolt, and a mace that’s absolutely soaked in blood. The skull itself has seen better days — he looks concerned, and appears to have suffered a terrible accident, as he’s got blood pouring from his mouth. It could reasonably be assumed he was smashed in the teeth by the blood-soaked mace in the picture. It’s not an easy gig posing for these obscure European metal 7 inch picture sleeves!

The music:
Typical of much obscure Euro metal from the early ’80s, Bloody Skizz have a ton of heart, an enchanting rawness, an annoying vocalist, and not much that makes you want to return for seconds. The shambling “Gods Breaker” is clearly inspired by Iron Maiden and ends up sounding like Witch Cross before they found their muse with the Fit to Fight album. “Bloody Road to Death,” rather, is more influenced by Judas Priest. The vocals in this song are a very weak attempt at Rob Halford in the Hell Bent for Leather era. If it weren’t for the heavily-accented vocals, this could easily pass as a NWOBHM release. These two songs are all Bloody Skizz ever offered, and believe me, you can live without this…you’ll be fine.
–Friar Wagner

SKULL192

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BROCAS HELM, Blood Machine / Skullfucker (1999, self-released)

The skull:
This skull faces to his right and oozes a blood-like gel (the Hasbro Blood Machine?). Quite miraculously, this gel congeals to form the word “Skullfucker” below him. It’s probably supposed to look bad-ass, but really looks more like a skull dripping red cake frosting from his lower jaw. Let’s get him a spot on America’s Got Talent.

The music:
The not-very-prolific Brocas Helm offered this two-song single in 1999, and while some prior recordings held some impressive moments, these two songs don’t number among their strongest material. They’ve got a manic momentum with some weird vocals and prominent bass playing, and the overall performances are excellent, as is the Brocas Helm standard. They certainly have a sound like no other — at least until The Lord Weird Slough Feg came along and co-opted their approach. “Skullfucker” is the better of the two songs, but ultimately these are two forgettable tunes, which is too bad, because this band can do better than this and usually does.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL186

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CHTON, Chtonian Lifecode (2004, Retribute)

The skull:
An arty sort of thing here, the skull looking down in apparent despair. We can only speculate where the blood is coming from. Crowns of thorns are popular in metal imagery, so maybe he’s looking down to find the crown of thorns that just fell off his head…but then he’d need some flesh for the crown to produce some bleeding and he’s just a damn skull made of nothin’ but bone so…who can really know? This cover has that confusing thing going on where the album title is flown large at top, making it look like the band’s name is Chtonian Lifecode and the album title is Chton, but no, it’s the other way around. Silly buggers.

The music:
You don’t hear music like this out of Norway very often: death metal apparently influenced by Suffocation and Rottrevore, the kind of tractor-pull noise that I admit a certain fondness for. But you better throw a twist into it, otherwise you’ll be in the shadow of the originators. And while Chton offer an extremely heavy sound that harkens to those acts, they also deliver the occasional wash of dissonant guitar chords and various modernisms, like chunkier chords and rhythms, and a slightly slicker production. So they’re not entirely stuck in the world of early ’90s death metal, but they do use that as a base for their particularly dark, heavy and brutal compositions. I admire what they’re doing here — especially the ungodly heavy bottom end and the Autopsy-like grit — and am curious to check out their second album, which was finally released eight years after this debut. If it’s just a little more interesting than this, then they’re not getting the attention they deserve in this current wave of fondness for old-school death metal. As for Chtonian Lifecode, it slipped by without much impact in 2004, but it’s worth checking out if you’re in the mood for death metal with one foot in the present and another in the good old days.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL166

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ANNIHILATOR, Double Live Annihilation  (2003, AFM)

The skull:
Animal skulls are generally frowned upon here at Big Dumb Skulls. The Council prefers that submissions depict only human or human-esque skulls. Take the horns away from this one and you’re pretty close to human, so we’ll let it slide. This bison-man skull thingy hovers above a sea (or puddle) of blood, one that is active and bubbling, indicating, mmm, maybe…Hell??? Whatever the case, wherever he hovers, he’s got “Double Live” etched into his forehead, and his eyes glow like fiery coals, presenting to you the word “Annihilation.” Skulls hover a lot, don’t they?

The music:
Isn’t it weird how “King of the Kill” could have been on those ’80s era Piledriver albums? How “Striker” is like Iron Maiden trying to play thrash (not a novel idea anymore, though), and “Murder” opens this album but is still as stinky as that whole Remains disaster? You get it all here, Annihilator fans. It was difficult for me to care about Annihilator past album #2, but if you’re a devotee, Double Live Annihilation will please, especially the career-spanning song selection, which is so career-spanning it hardly has any room for much from their first and best album. The sound is very good, the performances all totally pro. Vocalist Joe Comeau has a weird history: singer in Liege Lord, then became a guitarist in Overkill, formed Ramrod, then sang in Tad Morose for about three seconds, and he winds up as vocalist in Annihilator. (Although with the frequency of lineup changes in Annihilator, we’re all bound to be in Annihilator eventually.) Comeau has a  flavorless delivery, but it’s less annoying than Randy Rampage, so hearing a song like “Alice in Hell” without Rampage is a pleasure, as it’s one of Jeff Waters’ best compositions. The rest is what Annihilator specializes in: lots of great riffs, very few great songs.
— Friar Wagner