OBSERVANT, Corrodead (2010, demo)

The skull:
This skull comes with accompanying crossbones and is rendered a rust color to suggest corrosion. Look at what Observant is trying to convey here: death + corrosion = corrodead. That’s some kinda genius. As a cover and a concept, ain’t nothing going on here.

The music:
Once again we have a skull cover without much to offer and music that’s equally apathetic. Oh sure, Observant might sound like they mean it, but this is utterly unremarkable melodic death metal with some chunky, downtuned grooving added in. The vocals are lower than the norm in this genre, like Monstrosity/Bolt Thrower pitch. Sometimes they’re scratchier or more grating. They almost attain melody in one small part of “Smoke Screen.” None of it is memorable. The musicians have played in other unimportant bands while the vocalist has been fronting Finntroll since 2006. You kinda understand why they’ve not released anything other than this 2010 demo. The other guys: “Hey, vocalist, you wanna come down to rehearsal and work up some new Observant material?” The vocalist: “Nah, I gotta tour the world again and get paid well in Finntroll. Maybe next year?” And so it goes, year after year after year. Don’t look for any new Observant material anytime soon. — Friar Wagner

DUSK RITUAL, With Rum, Skull and Crossbones (2005, demo)

The skull:
A clipart skull and crossbones on a parchment-looking background, with a few spots of blood. Or, I guess, really oddly colored rum. No, that doesn’t make any sense, unless maybe it’s some kind of rum cocktail with grenadine. But then, the title would have to be, at a minimum, With Rum, Mixers, Skull and Crossbones. So yeah, it’s probably blood. For whatever stupid piratical reason. In any case, the only cover art I could find was incredibly small, so it looks extra bad blown up to the not-especially-large standard to which we hew at BDS headquarters.

The music:
There’s really only room in the world for two pirate metal bands, and Dusk Ritual is unfortunately neither Running Wild nor Swashbuckle. Although, I guess I can’t say for certain that Dusk Ritual are actually a pirate metal band, since I can’t understand the lyrics or find them on the internet. The cover art and title are damning, however, even if the German bio on the Austrian band’s still-extant Myspace page (this 2005 demo is their only release, so one assumes this is just an abandoned online outpost of a forgotten band) seems to refer to them as “party metal”. A grim party, that. Musically, this is just crappy thrash-flavored melodic death metal, so it’s no wonder Dusk Ritual failed to light the world on fire. But, they were ahead of the pirate metal boom by a few years, and it’s not like Alestorm is any good, so maybe theirs is simply a case of being too far ahead of their time.
— Friar Johnsen

ZNÖWHITE, Kick’Em When They’re Down (1985, Enigma)

The skull:
Incredibly big and almost impossibly dumb, this skull appears to have been hand crafted by an airbrush artisan at the boardwalk or something. It would have looked incredibly boss sprayed on the back of a denim jacket. The sinister sockets and rictus grin give the skull the air of midgrade malevolence you’d expect from a guy who’s waiting for the rank stink of his unleashed flatulence to reach you.

The music:
Pencil thin production and reedy female vocals somewhat mar this otherwise above-average thrash metal EP. The full length that follows it, Act of God, is an underrated classic though, one of the best Metallica-inspired thrash albums of the 80s, and singer Nicole Lee fully redeems herself there. Guitarist Greg Fulton (known then as Ian Tafoya) was always the star of the show, however, with one of the tightest right hands in the business, and his rhythm work on Kick’Em When They’re Down is pretty damned impressive for 1985. Znöwhite eventually morphed into Cyclone Temple, and their debut is another minor masterpiece, but after that album, Fulton lost his magic and his discs got more and more boring.
– Friar Johnsen