SKULL419

Posted on February 23, 2014 by Friar Johnsen

PROPELLER, Always Say Die (1992, demo)

The skull:
Another skull on a pentagram. I’d yawn, but I am amused by this one. It looks like the skull of a marionette, Howdy Doody defleshed, with it’s squashed jaw and tiny teeth. Also, I like how the eyes are actually too big for the sockets, which is not how eyes work. Yes, when you look at a (living) person, you can’t see the entire sphere, because of the eyelids. Take away the lids, though, and the eyeball fits nicely into the socket, with no overhanging bone to obscure the top or the bottom. Consider this a humble anatomy lesson directed at all future Big Dumb Skull artists, because this eye thing is a very common mistake.

The music:
In 1992 would almost certainly have been called death metal, but in retrospect it sounds more like thrash than anything. A transitional form, basically. Think Beneath the Remains or Swallowed in Black. It’s a little more legitimately deathy than some stuff of this era, perhaps because Propeller lifts sometimes very literally from contemporary death metal bands (the bridge in “Brainsucker Spiders,” for instance, is stolen from “Immortal Rites” by Morbid Angel). Despite the drum machine, and despite coming out of Russian in 1992, this sounds fairly good, and for die-hard thrash fans, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to own, although I’m sure at this point, a download is your only option. The vocals are weak, but the riffing is good and they’ve managed to cobble together some reasonable compelling songs, if only with the help of their inspirations. After releasing this demo, the band changed names to Phantasm and released a single album, but that album also features a Big Dumb Skull, so look for it here in the (distant) future. This demo seems to be the better-sounding effort, though, and most of the songs on the LP are also here, so I guess this is the place to start.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL403

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Friar Wagner

INSIDEAD, Chaos Elecdead (2011, Massacre)

The skull:
The very definition of “passionless art.” A skull. With fangs. Steely gray. Symmetrical. Flanked by wings, bones and bird skulls. (The Council have ruled that this does not violate the “no skulls” rule, as only human skulls are under consideration for Big Dumb Skulls.) Zero style, zero meaning. It looks a lot like 45 other covers of albums also released on Massacre Records in the last 5 years.

The music:
If there’s one thing I hate more than crappy skull covers like this one, it’s the “name game” so many bands play. For instance, Skinlab album title reVoltingRoom, or The Gathering’s if_then_else. Insidead do this too and prefer that their name be written thusly: InsIDeaD. Apparently this is some sort of cleverness having to do with the id part of the brain. And if there’s something I hate more than the name game, it’s silly metal portmanteaus, such as “Elecdead” in this album title (ie. “elected”) or that already-forgotten Swedish band Construcdead (“constructed”) and their genius album title Violadead (“violated”). There are others, but these are some of the ones that use the word “dead.” And if there’s one thing I hate more than these silly metal portmanteaus it’s crappy modern metal that sounds like a mixture of latter-day Sepultura and any day Pantera with tons of breakdowns and the obligatory “motherfucker!” yelp. The band describes their music as “a mixture of heavy, thrash and death core elements with a modern touch.” No wonder. Just wait till you hear the ballad “Time,” which sounds like Nickelback covering Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” with a heavy Greek accent. The latter they cannot help, but everything else is a voluntary exercise in generic modern metal, and Chaos Elecdead (it hurts just to type it) is possibly the most uninteresting and pointless album I’ve had to listen to during these skull excavations thus far.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL291

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

BLACKHORNED, A Night at the Graves (2010, self-released)

The skull:
It’s well known that The Council frowns on skulls in possession of other bones, which is why skeletons are absolutely forbidden from The Skullection. But here we have an impish skull grinning madly and surrounded by bones that are clearly not a part of his own anatomy. He’s just a cheeky joker, popping out of a midden of human remains, probably to surprise some of his skull buddies, whom I imagine hovering somewhere out of frame. Or maybe this skull romps in piles of bone as a child plays in a heap of raked leaves or drifted snow. He’s just having a laugh, kicking back on a night at the graves, which is one of the few entertainment options available to a free-spirited and underemployed skull these days.

The music:
A Night at the Graves collects some rehearsal room demos and some live tracks, and was allegedly sold only at shows on CDR, although I’ve seen it listed at reasonable prices by a few mailorder vendors, so it can’t be that rare. Blackhorned play, as you’d probably expect, sleazy death/thrash with some D-beat leanings. Think Nocturnal Breed, but not as fast. I find this kind of music fairly worthless, but then again, it’s lifestyle metal, made for people who want to cultivate a very specific aesthetic and mystique. Somehow in life, a guy decides he’s gonna start wearing a black denim vest and a bullet belt and aviator glasses and spiked bracers (at least on special occasions). He decides that his music will be cult, his beer cheap, and his showers irregular. He starts off easy, maybe with some Aura Noir and Desaster and two or three bands that start with “Dis-“. And before you know it, he’s got a shrine full of Blackhorned rehearsal demos and a landlord threatening him with eviction. It happens all the time, and there’s nothing any of us can do to stop it.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL218

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Friar Wagner

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

SKULL151

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Friar Wagner

KRABATHOR, Dissuade Truth (2003, System Shock)

The skull:
Not quite sure how this big ol’ skull is dissuading the truth. What is the truth? Is it whatever’s written on the scraps of parchment shown on this cover? If these texts are the truth, how does a littering of rib cages, bones and this solitary big dumb skull dissuade it? It might be beyond our grasp, it might be beyond all earthly, human understanding. Which would make Krabathor the sole keepers of the secrets of the universe. And if that’s the truth, god help us all.

The music:
Dissuade Truth is this Czech band’s final album, Krabathor finally calling it a day over 15 years after after forming as Krabator (not sure why the extra “h” was eventually added). They appeared at a time when only serious metalheads were discovering this new form of music called death metal (1988) and I’ll bet if they came back here in 2013, they’d still be considered second-rate, despite their style being warmly welcomed right about now. Because they were always lackluster. Think Divine Empire or Jungle Rot — sturdy, simple, monochrome brutal death metal, nothing fancy, nothing overly technical, dry as a bone and totally unpretentious in its mission. Some cool guitar leads here and there that seem to come from the school of Schuldiner/Death, and a few good drum fills too. It’s certainly nothing egregiously bad. Master-mind Paul Speckmann was in the band by this time, but would you really be able to pick out his bass playing style if you hadn’t known this in advance? But go ahead, listen to the nine songs and 36+ minutes of Dissuade Truth. It’s easy to do, not at all taxing on the brain cells…enjoyable if you haven’t heard death metal for 10 years and want a reminder of its basic structure. But you probably want more than that, don’t you? I come away from this after final song “Saving of Mind” with some respect for their time in the trenches, but if it weren’t for having to review this for Big Dumb Skulls, I might have forgotten all about these guys.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL66

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Friar Wagner

MEGADETH, Killing is My Business…And Business is Good! (reissue) (2002, Loud)

The skull:
This joins Devastation’s Idolatry as one of few albums to make the Skullection twice. The first goes all the way back to Skull15, where Friar Johnsen took a look at the original cover from 1985. And there’s really no beating the original, but this updated version makes some kind of sense, adding the newer and more popular Megadeth logo to a painted interpretation of the original cover concept. That concept? A metal plate riveted across the skull’s eyes and figure eight-ish hooks in mouth. The chains from the original design are here attached to big earpieces that almost look like headphones. The bones ‘n’ blades behind the skull add some sizzle to the overall design. The skull even has a couple pieces of spinal column attached, but not enough to disqualify it under the “no skeletons” rule. A pretty snazzy looking cover, the added accoutrements are nice, but the original is still where it’s at.

The music:
I guess Loud Records is some short-lived subsidiary of Capitol Records or something. And it was they who put out this reissue of Megadeth’s excellent debut. Friar Johnsen ably spoke to the importance and awesomeness of Killing… in his earlier review, and I concur 100%. Special mention needs to be made of “Looking Down the Cross,” which might be this Friar’s favorite-ever Megadeth song, but there’s a large handful of others contending for that title. This remixed version of Killing… is good, and while I prefer the wiry, thin sound of the original, the beefier, bassier mix here works pretty well too. There are a lot of sonic differences between this and the original, and if you love this album as much as we do, you’ll look for any excuse to have the thrill of buying it again. What’s frustrating is the bleeped-to-shit version of “These Boots,” which might have been better excised entirely. Even more frustrating is how they (“they” being Mustaine?) fucked with the original track order, placing “These Boots” at the end and not in position four as on the original. Extra bonus comes in the first ever official issuing of their three-song 1984 demo, a super-raw, ultra-frantic view into the band’s earliest recorded material. Like the album itself, it totally kills. They don’t make ’em like this anymore, that’s for sure.
— Friar Wagner