ZARACH BAAL THARAGH, Skull Face Exhumations  (demo, 2006)

The skull:
This French freakazoid has shown lots of love for big dumb skulls throughout his illustrious, infamous career, between this “band” and other projects like White Bastard and Skull Face. We spun the wheel and chose this one. It’s as good as any. This one boasts some real black metal chutzpah: pentagram, crazy logo, lots of dripping stuff, what appears to be a forest, and a very worried looking skull. Party! This skull is likely overwhelmed with the grief of appearing on one of this guy’s 100+ demos. It’s embarrassing stuff for any skull. No kidding, this guy has over 100 demos to his credit. What’s weird is he’s not produced any yet for 2013, as of this writing in late March. Is he still alive?

The music:
Typical one-man-band/bedroom-studio sort of stuff. That doesn’t always mean garbage, but it does here. There’s a fine line between something like this and Xasthur. This particular demo (ZBT’s 49th, apparently) features 22 different tracks all named “Exhumation.” Surely some folks have tried to convince themselves that this exists on some high-art level, but I know pointless black metal junk when I hear it, and this is the epitome of pointless black metal junk. Moving right along…
— Friar Wagner