Tag Archives: pentagram

Satan

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THE WOUNDED KINGS, In the Chapel of the Black Hand (2011, I Hate)

The skull:
Though it was clearly painted by a high school senior, this is a nice and moody piece that’s only spoiled by the too-crisp typography of the logo and title. Though there’s nothing especially evocative of a chapel to be seen here, this at least looks like the sort of thing you might see in the Black Hand’s chapel, I suppose. And though it’s surely meant to be painted on, I prefer to think that the pentagram and its associated script is actually the most evil yarmulke ever, the ideal headgear for some serious hardcore satanic Kabbalah.

The music:
Ever wonder what Ozzy might sound like if he were a woman? If that nasal, pinched voice of his were pitched a half octave higher and with even less body? Well then, I have the band for you! Singer Sharie Neyland transforms otherwise merely boring occult doom metal into something uniquely annoying with her infuriating witchy poo voice. To be fair, if the greatest male singer of all time tried his hand at her melodies, he would also fail to inspire, as she seems intent on never moving more than a step at a time from the last note. Simply atrocious. The music is no worse than most shit in this vein (see also: Lord Vicar, Electric Wizard, et al) but that means it’s already bad enough to avoid. Add in these spectacularly shitty vocals and this is a must-miss affair.
— Friar Johnsen

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NECROMANTIA, Vampiric Rituals  (1992, demo)

The skull:
Huge eye sockets, huge nasal cavity, big “Call me Cletus” teeth, and some of the most bad-ass looking fangs we’ve yet seen on a skull. Fangs-on-skull usually look goofy or lamely tacked on by an amateur computer “artist,” but these…yeah, I’d run the other way if I saw these white spikes of doom gnashing away, lusting for any part of my flesh. However, this is rendered less threatening by the symbol on the forehead. Designed properly, it may have added to all the evil intent, but really it just looks like a sticker from a Flash Gordon playset slapped onto his forehead. These album covers are great, the ones that take the album title and hope to reflect that title super-literally. Vampire fangs + Ritual-esque symbol on forehead = Vampiric Rituals!

The music:
The one and only “they have two bass players” black metal band from Greece. This is their second release (which actually combines two different recordings, from 1990 and 1991). Unsurprisingly it’s quite the raw ride. When they play fast, as in parts of “The Feast of Ghouls,” it’s absolutely feral despite its clumsiness. Paired with the diseased vocals it paints a bleak, creepy picture. The drumming is hilariously bad throughout, and even those bassists are a bit sketchy, but they certainly sounded more accomplished as quickly as the next year’s debut album. Too many “ooh, aren’t we a spooky lot?” keyboard parts throughout this 39-minute demo, but you have to give them credit for conjuring a vibe here, that vibe particular to the early ’90s Greek scene — strange, morbid, raw, earnest and with a certain charm. The final track, “La Mort,” is especially strange, sounding not unlike some basement recording of a dark Italian prog rock band with drunken Uncle Giorgio having taken over the mic to perform his best/worst Dracula impression. Unsettling and funny at the same time. Whether it’s Rotting Christ, Varathron or Necromantia, their ideas were more ambitious than their skills would allow in their early forms, but they did the best they could, and you have to give them each credit for their ability to craft otherworldly atmospheres. The material on this recording is a bit stiff, a bit cold, a bit low-rent, but that may be what Necromantia were going for, and it’s definitely what a ton of NWN!-worshipping kids in suburbs all over the globe will eat up these days, if packaged properly (ie. deluxe “blood pack” red vinyl with thick 54-page booklet, limited to 100 hand-numbered copies. Preferably.).
— Friar Wagner

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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

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LUCIDO, Demo 2 (2007, Inquisitoris Ex Mundus Novus Productions)

The skull:
With its stark woodcut-style design, this is actually a very sharp, cool, distinctive skull. From the chin to the nose, there’s not much to say. The lower half looks nice, and if the artist had rendered the top half in the same style, this would still be a cut above most BDSes, but it appears that the acid kicked in around the time the artist got to the eyes, and he just rolled with it. The pentagram feels a bit forced, but those massive will-o-wisp eyes are awesome, and they make the whole cover. My hat goes off to you, unknown French metal demo cover artist!

The music:
I couldn’t find any music from this demo, but I was able to track down the band’s first demo (and only other release), the equally brilliantly titled Demo 2005. It’s weird sloppy French thrash metal with some punk and black metal influences. The vocals are a kind of blackish troll growl and are quite lame. The music is shambling and disorganized, but its made with the same buffoonish charm that animates, say, Obsessed by Cruelty. Of course, no one really likes music that inept as a rule, unless they first heard it as a kid or it was made long before they listened to metal. Coming out as this did in 2005, well, it’s a little late to the party. Lucido even seem to know this, as they labor to play messy music with something closer to the basic instrumental proficiency people demand these days, but trying to have it both ways never works well in these contexts. Lord knows where they went, musically from here, but Metal Archives seems to think they ended up playing black metal. If so, well, that was about the Frenchest thing this band could have done.
— Friar Johnsen

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VIOLENT HATE, Rising From the Past  (2009, Mutilation)

The skull:
This guy is all decked out in blades. Look at ’em all! So many sharp edges here, amidst an unholy red mess of creepy writhing tendrils. It’s almost enough to take attention away from the skull, who looks mighty evil with that upside-down star on his forehead. Unfortunately, all that evil is rendered inert due to the missing front tooth that makes him look like a redneck skull, a skull that took a wrong turn on his hike…and ended up playing with the powers of Hell. “I didn’t know, man, I was just waltzing along minding my own business when all these blades showed up and this pentagram came flyin’ in and stuck onto my head.” Sure, buddy. Sure.

The music:
Violent Hate’s biggest claim to fame is sharing space with Krisiun on a 1993 split. Their music recalls elements of Deicide, Vital Remains, and Vader, although it lacks a firm identity of its own (which is funny, because even Vader lacks a firm identity of their own, but that’s another story). You’re getting faceless garden variety death metal of a super-heavy inclination here. It’s been done better, it’s been done worse. If you’re actually interested, though, this collection would set you up nicely, as it gives you most of their recorded material. All except their very first demo from 1992, which means you will not get the stone cold death metal classic, “Like a Bitch in Heat.” Oh, and one of their members gives us the finger from under a brim-flipped S.T.-like ballcap. Badass, dude.
— Friar Wagner

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UNDERLORD, Rise of the Ancient Kings (2003, Rage of Achilles)

The skull:
I do love these covers that feature literally every evil metal signifier possible, crammed into one disjointed composition. A pentagram, upside down crosses (on fire, naturally), crazy swords, occult symbols, and of course a seriously regal skull in the midst of it all. As with the nouveau riche, this nouveau mal skull is just a bit too ostentatious in his displays of malevolence. You just know he drives some fancy luxury hearse with the vanity plate, “EVLSKLL”, and he just never takes that fucking crown off. How else would you know how royally sinister he is?

The music:
An even mix of first and second wave black metal, Underlord offer no surprises and nothing new. The playing is remarkably crisp, considering how shitty the recording is, but the riffs are dime-a-dozen Venom, Bathory and Mayhem knockoffs, with the obligatory croaking vocals and lyrics about war, Satan, and ancient wisdom and what have you. If you think of Hellhammer as more than just the shitty band that eventually became Celtic Frost, or you think Sodom peaked with In the Sign of Evil, then maybe Underlord will tweak your nipples just right.
— Friar Johnsen

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THORIUM, Cast from Hell (2007, Prutten)

The skull:
A stock-photo skull (with cheesy fangs) is cheaply interwoven with an upside-down star in an image more than little suggestive of the Sisters of Mercy logo. The object of a casting is usually thrown down from its original location, so the title of this EP suggests a sub-hell heretofore unconsidered by mainstream Christian theology. Evidently it’s a black and white plane of inscrutable geometries that can be cheaply photocopied for maximum underground cred. Wicked.

The music:
Thorium is full of dudes from other bands, but the only one worth a damn was Withering Surface. They were one of the very best melodic death metal bands of all time, and I adored even in their slightly embarassing chasing-after-Soilwork groove phase. Sadly, while Withering Surface passed on, Thorium remains. Vocalist Michael Anderson was the main guy in Withering Surface, but let’s be honest: he was never a particularly noteworthy singer, and his low growls here are even less interesting than his higher-pitched rasp he used back when he was all about whorebrides and whatnot. Thorium’s music is fine, a sort of unspectacular Eurodeath that’s not exactly brutal but also isn’t making any effort to smooth over the rough patches. I rarely listen to this sort of thing because it all kind of sounds the same, but if you were into, I dunno, Vader, then maybe you’d enjoy Thorium. I’m not, so I don’t.
— Friar Johnsen

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GRAVE DESECRATOR, Cult of Warfare and Darkness  (2003, Ketzer)

The skull:
Oooh, scary ritual skull. This slightly out-of-focus picture kind of looks ancient, although the bullet belt is likely circa 1985 or so. There’s also a silver pentagram that looks like it would make a bad-ass necklace charm, and the two candles burning liven up the party. The skull? He’s all “Don’t you dare steal my evil thunder, you candlestick, pentagram and bullet belt.” Looks like he’s mounted on the candle holder, which is pretty awesome. The cover itself would be a little more awesome if it weren’t an idea that you’ve seen a zillion times before. I’m guessing that the unoriginal cover idea is going to translate to the music inside…

The music:
I couldn’t be more wrong!!! Grave Desecrator play RHCP-style pop-funk, dressed up with dubstep bass throbbing and progressive folk whimsy, while hints of skronking jazz rock serve as well-placed segues. Nah, of course it’s orthodox black metal that you’ve heard a zillion times before. If you own Sarcofago’s excellent I.N.R.I., listen to that while simultaneously listening to Darkthrone’s A Blaze in the Northern Sky, and you’ll basically get Grave Desecrator. Two songs, 10 minutes, which makes the plagiarism at least tolerable.
— Friar Wagner

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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