Tag Archives: grenade

SKULL439

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ILLIDIANCE, Deformity (2013, self-released)

The skull:
The deep blue palette and the fine, soft brushwork on display here (even if it was done, as it likely was, entirely digitally) make me think of Necrolord, but there’s no way he’d ever create something as garishly stupid as this. Skull, brass knuckles, grenade, banner, sawblade, wings, outline stars, stencil AND script lettering: this cover has everything you need for like five douchey tattoos, with enough left over for two or three Affliction shirts. This is the pure, concentrated distillation of Hot Topic, in album art form.

The music:
Thuggish Soilwork style stuff, leavened by a shitpile of bloopy techno keyboards and bass drops, plus plenty of the djenty chugs that the kidz are so into these days. This is really shameless dreck, like a shittier version of Mnemic (if you can even imagine). Really, people: there is nothing more to be gained from mixing death metal howls and schmaltzy emo clean vocals. There’s no surprise in the contrast anymore, and no one will ever believe that your band is either tough OR sensitive. They will, however, immediately understand that you’re trendchasing whores without vision or talent. Read Illidiance’s Metal Archives page and you’ll be hammered over the head by this Russian band’s feckless opportunism: “Genre: Symphonic Black Metal (early), Electronic/Metal (later)…. The band now describes themselves as ‘cyber metal’.” Ugh. They even used to wear corpsepaint and are now all about full-sleeve tattoos and wraparound shades. Amazing. I guess I could give them points for making a good sounding EP, but actually, I won’t. Fuck this stupid band.
— Friar Johnsen

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DEFORMITY, Repulsions of War (1992, demo)

The skull:
At first glance, I thought I had another trepanned skull on my hands, but the cracks around the hole, not to mention the title, strongly suggest it’s a bullet hole. Which is fine. At least he died quick. Of course, had he held out a little longer, he could die even quicker when that swastigrenade goes off. I guess the black outline is supposed to suggest the helmeted soldier who used to carry this skull around, but it kind of looks like Velma from Scooby Doo is trying to hide behind the skull. She’s pretty repulsive, I guess, but not particularly warlike, even if her name is very Germanic sounding.

The music:
This was recorded in 1992 at Sunlight Studios in Stockholm, so you can pretty much already imagine exactly what it sounds like, although in addition to the obvious influence of their countrymen, I hear a not-insignificant amount of Bolt Thrower here as well (particularly on the title track and “In Fear”), which is certainly a welcome addition to the mix. The singer basically splits the difference between LG Petrov and John Liiva, which is to say he sounds pretty bad-ass. Obviously, we at Skull HQ complain tirelessly about unoriginal bands, but the truth is, when it comes to this early Swedish death metal, we’re pretty much always game, no matter how much it sounds like everything else that came out of that scene from 1989 to 1992, and even then, Deformity is exceptionally cool. Better than Desultory for sure. They don’t quite rise to Nirvana 2002 level cult status, but they’re quite good and worth hearing if you like this shit.
— Friar Johnsen

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FLEURETY, Department of Apocalyptic Affairs  (2000, Supernal)

The skull:
This album has four different covers that the owner can choose to display. Fleurety were prescient enough to understand that there would someday be a blog that fetishized skull album covers, making sure one of the cover choices featured a skull. Naturally they would want a piece of this action. What’s happening here is pretty simple: a grenade is cock-blocking the skull’s big moment in the spotlight. Skull thought he’d be the envy of all his skull friends, but nope, this asshole grenade nudged into the shot at the last minute. And who’s gonna argue with a grenade?

The music:
This album is just barely metal, residing on the genre’s outer fringes in what we might as well call the “avant-garde.” Fleurety’s early material remains some of the best and most interesting Norwegian black metal ever recorded, and with the EP that precedes this album (1999’s Last-Minute Lies), the Fleurety duo did what most good Norwegian black metal bands do — they went weird. The resulting follow-up, Department of Apocalyptic Affairs, is perhaps the weirdest of the Norwegian post-black metal oddities, at least of the listenable ones. (Zweizz is probably the weirdest, but that’s so over-the-edge weird that it’s easy to disregard as pure junk. Zweizz is one-half of the Fleurety duo, by the way.) At its best, this is akin to Arcturus in the second album era (La Masquerade Infernale) stretching into the territory of Ulver’s fourth (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell) with a desire to rid themselves of the metal altogether and worship at the altar of Bjork and the weirdest of Radiohead’s b-sides. But it’s never quite as good as that sounds on paper. At its worst, it’s an incoherent mess, as heard on opener “Exterminators.” Yet my enthusiasm (fuck it, I’ll call it like it is: it’s total lust) for this whole movement makes the whole thing endearing despite its faults. Pretty amazing cast of guest performers too: key members of Arcturus, Ulver, Ved Buens Ende, Virus, Mayhem, Winds, and Beyond Dawn. It’s a really nice package as well, with all those different covers and a nifty folder that houses individual cards for each song, credits, and pictures. Thanks to the Discogs.com marketplace I finally picked up a real copy, an item that had been high on my want-list for a long time (I don’t totally remember why I didn’t buy it when it was first released). I probably won’t display the cover with the teddy bear and the grenade — will probably go with the skull panel. That seems the natural choice, but I must admit I’m being tempted by the lemon grenade cover (lemon-nade?).
— Friar Wagner

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ILSA, The Maggots are Hungry (2009, Odium Generis Humani)

The skull:
This amazing skull combines three of my favorite things: flowing tresses, berets, and potato masher grenades. The single, glaring eye is just icing on the cake. For some reason, this skull immediately made me think of Chainsaw Caine, the idiot frontman of the godawful Slave Raider, but Caine wore his eyepatch over his right eye, so this clearly couldn’t be him. Also, Caine wishes he had hair this lovely. Really, I don’t know how or why I made the connection, but it came to me instantly and powerfully, and in this line of work, one comes to trust those instincts. Call them the providence of The Skull.

The music:
I’m not a huge fan of crust (I like Amebix and Hellbastard and not much else) but Ilsa are pretty good as crust goes. While a lot of crust leans punk, this is definitely metal, and in their slower moments Ilsa could even make for a convincing doom metal band. The raspy, grindy vocals suck pretty bad, and it’s not like any of these riffs are gonna knock your socks off, but The Maggots are Hungry is slathered in grimy atmosphere and a palpable indignation, which is really the most you can ask of crust. The production is analog and murky, but it’s not anarcho-squatter lo-fi, as a lot of this sort of thing tends to be, and clocking in at under a half-hour, this at least doesn’t leave you wanting less.
— Friar Johnsen

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DIVINE HERESY, Bleed the Fifth (2007, Roadrunner)

The skull:
In a squalid restroom, a skull is jammed full of wires and gauges and shit, while he chomps down toothlessly on a grenade. There’s no bleeding going on, but presumably that grenade is ensuring the skull’s right to remain silent. Score another victory for the rights of the accused! This is not a very pretty cover, but it looks like someone went to the trouble of finding a good replica skull and going to town on it with rusty ric-a-brac and the hot glue gun, which is an artistic process The Council fully endorses. The arts-and-crafts method of cover creation is a sadly fading tradition, especially in the BDS realm, where handmade skulls once ruled the roost.

The music:
After he quit Fear Factory, Dino Cazares assembled Divine Heresy to play exactly the same kind of music he was making before. The differences are minor: Tim Yeung’s drumming is slightly less quantized than Raymond Herrera’s. Dino’s riffs are (very) occasionally a little noodlier. Tommy Vext’s (aka Cummings) death vocals are notably crappier than Burton Bell’s, while his clean vocals are at least a little more consistent. Other than that, if you’ve heard Fear Factory, you can easily imagine what Divine Heresy sounds like. I really enjoyed the first three Fear Factory albums (although they haven’t aged especially well) but the band lost me with the flaccid Digimortal, and while the post-Dino band put out some competent albums, the real Fear Factory magic (such as it is) is clearly in Dino’s hands, and this first Divine Heresy disc is probably the best of the post-Obsolote offerings from the FF camp. Hardly essential, but if you’re in the mood for Dino’s unique sound, this is a fine offering.
— Friar Johnsen