Tag Archives: eyepatch

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RUNNING WILD, First Years of Piracy (1991, Noise)

The skull:
At first I thought, “Oh, come on. By the time the scalp and hair rotted away, that bandana would be MUCH looser around the skull’s dome…” before I started to wonder if maybe this guy wasn’t in fact killed by an overtight bandana. Think about it, you’re on the open seas, the wind in your face, and your stupid mandatory headgear is constantly blowing off. So, you tie it on really fucking tight, so tight that not even gale force winds could knock it off, and the next thing you know, you’re dying of gangrene because you cut off the circulation to the top of your noggin. Sounds pretty fucking stupid, until you hear that this guy lost an eye trying to balance a rapier on his nose. Kids: don’t make bets when you’re getting double rum rations.

The music:
Generally speaking, it never pays to re-record old songs. For one, there’s always a certain spark that’s lost with the benefit of hindsight, an ineffable youthful energy that’s nearly impossible to summon at will years later. But more than that, by the time an band has accumulated sufficient fans and marketplace goodwill to get away with a release like this, the band is usually well past its prime. But Running Wild were near the top of their game in 1991 when they decided to revive these tunes from their first three albums. Rolf and company released one of their best original albums in the same year, Blazon Stone and were only a couple years from the creative peak of Death or Glory. So, it can’t be said that the band were on the wrong side of the curve when they undertook this project. But then, it can’t really be said that those first three albums were really so raw and underproduced that they needed to be revisited this way. I just recently listened to Gates of Purgatory and was impressed anew at just how tight the band was. Sure, Rolf’s voice hadn’t quite hit its stride, but the playing and production were otherwise just fine. The most shocking thing about that very first Running Wild album is how thrashy it sounds in retrospect; it has a lot more in common with Bathory than probably most people would think. Then again, Rolf’s did improve immensely in those seven crucial years, so for sure he sounds better on “Prisoner of Our Time” and “Soldiers in Hell”. There’s less of an improvement, though, for the tunes from Under Jolly Roger, which was actually only four years old at that point. That fact alone reminds me of how fast-paced the early metal scene was. Nowadays, a band re-recording a four year old song might be doing it on the very next album from the original! But, I digress. First Years of Piracy is inessential, but it’s also quite good and serves as an excellent best-of from the early days of the band, and probably served the intended function of defining the canonical early tunes that one could expect at a Running Wild show in the early 90s, but owning this will only make you want the original albums the more, and if you have them already, are you really going to spend much time with the rerecorded versions? Unless you derive some perverse titilation in the disgusting triggered snare sound that was the Running Wild calling card in 1991, then probably not.
— Friar Johnsen

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NIHILIST, Call Down the Thunder  (2006, self-released)

The skull:
A skull out of time. While this looks every shade of 1984, it’s actually an eyesore released in the modern age. Wonders never cease. And it’s another in the skull family of logo-eaters, something we’ve seen and been amused by a couple times already. The eyepatch and the hair are hilariously self-explanatory. (Especially the hair…he’s got the mane of a lion.) This skull’s here to rock! And to apparently call down the thunder. We see the lightning, so the thunder can’t be far behind. I’m going to guess this sounds exactly like Wild Dogs.

The music:
Are there really several young kids who love metal, meet up and form a band together who haven’t ever heard of the Swedish death metal band that has the rightful claim to the Nihlist name? Even if that name hasn’t been in use since the band changed their name to Entombed in 1989, you’d think anyone respectful of the genre’s history would leave the name alone. Or maybe they just don’t care? Anyway, what’s in a name? This Nihilist are from California and they play goofy, hard-rocking metal with a speedy element that isn’t quite thrash but gets close. Lots of dopey vocal phrasing that apes equally dopey riffs. This is their downfall, because otherwise its solid, serviceable metal, even if it’s nothing you’d cross the street to obtain. Occasionally you’ll hear a passage the reaches metal glory, as in “The Assault.” You have to respect their energy, and their tenacity (lots of self-releases over ten years’ time), but they’re generally useless unless you’ve just been introduced to heavy metal, and then I suppose they’d sound fairly fresh. They do a decent but pointless cover of Judas Priest’s “Freewhell Burning,” which provides a perfect example of what their originals attempt to achieve. Judging from the sound of the band plus the cover artwork, I’ll give them another few points for their total lack of irony; Nihilist (CA) seems to be a completely earnest, from-the-heart sort of endeavor. They probably don’t even have beards. Good on ’em for all that.
— Friar Wagner

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BLACK JACK, Five Pieces of Eight  (1985, Metal For Melbourne)

The skull:
This is the second skull cover I’ve seen this week that includes a hovering pistol. (And that’s a sentence I have never before typed in my life.) But everything’s levitating here: the gun, the sword, the skull itself — although skulls do lots of floating around these parts. The image is made complete by the headband, earring and eyepatch, even if the latter is functionless on a skull. The dude is clearly out for revenge, ready to kill those who glanced that cannonball off his head and took some bone off the top. And check out the extra contrivance of an ear bone, an artistic prosthesis of sorts, so the skull could sport an earring. Muhfugga’s crazy! This skull has all the goods to rape and pillage on the high seas…except a ship.

The music:
Back in 1983 when Running Wild were still singing about evil, hell, and the occult, this band from Melbourne, Australia quietly invented the genre that Running Wild gets credited with founding: pirate metal. Their ’83 demo flys the Jolly Roger right there on the tape cover and features songs like “Crusader’s Revenge” and “Spanish Lover,” back when Rock ‘n’ Rolf’s only knowledge of a “Jolly Roger” was the gay bar down the street in Hamburg. Black Jack released this EP in 1985 and continued the pirate theme. “Man at Arms” is doom-laden and dirgy, with some loping, soaring guitar leads, and the guy’s pretty good, although the song itself meanders. They pick up the pace on “Highwayman’s Inn” (clunky NWOBHM-style stuff) while “Hot Rocket” pairs terrible lyrics with even worse vocals. The playing is sufficient, and the lead guitarist better than that. The energy is high too, but the recording is downright dire. A bit of a shambles, really, and something for only the most indiscriminate lover of metal obscurities. Ultimately its 25 minutes soar by in a fog of uselessness. On a historical basis, you gotta hail Black Jack, the true founders of Pirate Metal! (Or “Damn you Black Jack!” if you think the whole pirate metal thing is totally fucking silly.)
— Friar Wagner

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BLITZSPEER, Live (1990, Epic)

The skull:
Finally! Some actual Pushead, to go along with all the pushead knockoffs littering the skullection. This is hardly Mr. Head’s finest work, but it’s still pretty excellent in its simplicity. Skull, eyepatch, crossbones, checkered flags. Looks like the painting was then slapped unceremoniously over a photo of some asphalt, but half-assedness was the order of the day, as we shall see.

The music:
In the late 80s, there was a halo effect around hair metal, the aquanet tide lifting all ships in the metal fleet. Thrash, in particular, seemed like it might be the next big thing, and every major label scrambled to sign any band that might possibly become the next Metallica, or, failing that, the next Testament. A lot of bands without so much as a demo got snapped up and rushed to market well before their due, and as a result you’d see things like Meliah Rage’s Live Kill Blitzspeer’s Live taking up space and creating “buzz” while the bands got their shit together for a full length. As it happened, by the time those LPs were finally shit out, so too had Nevermind been shat, and the thrash Titanic made a beeline for the ocean floor. A lot of great bands undeservedly took it on the chin in those dark times (see: Wrathchild America), but it can’t be said that Blitzspeer didn’t deserve their almost immediate obscurity. A tepid mix of thrash and biker rock, delivered with a well-rehearsed NYC punk sneer, Blitzspeer weren’t bad so much as totally, completely forgettable. Live is actually a really nicely recorded document, and while at least half of these songs appeared on the band’s studio debut (and swansong) Saves, these live versions are clearly more energetic than their properly tracked counterparts. That’s not enough to really make it worth your time to track this stuff down, but I guess if you’re dead set on owning some Blitzspeer, this is the one you want.
— Friar Johnsen

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SACRIFICE, Crest of Black (1986, demo)

The skull:
Even by the standards of the hand-drawn demo cover, this skull is pretty lame. Why does a skull with no eyes need an eyepatch? Why not wear two, then? The pentagram is of course always a welcome addition, and it’s nice that instead of the cliched knife in the teeth, this pirate skull is biting down on a big axe, it’s notched blade glinting in the sun. How he’s going to wield it is another question for another time.

The music:
Early Japanese thrash that’s pretty much exactly as good as you’re imagining. It’s easy to forget when you hear something this murky and terrible that in 1986, thrash was actually pretty advanced. It’s the year of Reign in Blood, Peace Sells, and Master of Puppets, but you’d think from listening to Crest of Black that Hellhammer’s first demo had just been released, that Mantas was still in Venom, and that Quorthon was still squatting over pentagrams. This demo sounds terrible, the songs are awful, and the playing and singing are atrocious. I know there’s a whole scene of people for whom this kind of “authenticity” trumps all other concerns (and it is for exactly this undiscerning crowd that this barely-a-footnote demo was bootlegged on vinyl), but I for one demand a bit more than an unusual (for metal) provenance and a yellowing photocopied tape sleeve. Don’t hear small sound indeed!
— Friar Johnsen