SKULL581

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Friar Johnsen

OBÚS, Pega con Fuerza (1985, Chapa)

The skull:
Ladies and gentlemen, this is how they did it before Photoshop: with scissors and glue. Why isn’t the skull chromed like the pipes? Because that’s not the skull they had to work with. This looks a bit like an art project from a grade-school kid, albeit a kid with odd aesthetic sensibilities, and I bet it still probably cost some Spanish record label over a million pesetas. But, as a big dumb skull, it’s awesome. Pega con Fuerza translates to “Hits hard” (more or less), and that only makes literal sense with this image if it’s a car grill or something, but whatever. Its figurative impact is great. This can’t be denied.

The music:
You’ve probably never heard of Obús, but they’ve been around since the dawn of time and have released nine full-length albums. They just don’t sing in English. Had they sung in English, they’d be at least as well known as Cannon or Underdog. Imagine an even lighter take on early 80s Priest, (or Def Leppard, even), but sung in Spanish, and you’re imagining Obús. Which is to say: they’re not that bad! The music can be pretty corny, but it’s catchy and very well-sung, and I’m sure the lyrics are fucking terrible, but unless you’re fluent in Español, who cares? Not being able to understand the lyrics is basically the primary upside of listening to foreign-language metal. Anyway, I’m not about to suggest that Obús are some kind of hidden gem; they’re still fairly cheesy, and finding their stuff is probably more trouble than it’s worth (if you demand more than a YouTube video, at least), but if you can’t get enough of vaguely poppy mid 80s metal, and you thought you already had it all, then maybe you need some Obús in your collection.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL319

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

DYNABYTE, 2KX (2010, self-released)

The skull:
This might have been a cool cover if someone had actually set out a skull and then projected their stupid blue gears-and-pipes collage onto it. Instead, probably a skull photo was poached from the internet and the industrial cliches were just Photoshopped in. I do like the attention paid to the teeth, though. They look nice.

The music:
Obviously, Dynabyte are industrial metal. The cover gives that away immediately. They’re like a slightly heavier KMFDM, with a little Pslam 69-era Ministry thrown in. Nothing too special, I’d say, although at their best (“Normal”, for instance) they almost approach early Pitch Shifter in quality. The female vocals, courtesy of Cadaveria, remind me a bit of early Genitorturers, although the cleaner singing is more nasal and less appealing. The growling is okay, though. Industrial metal, overall, should be a lot better than it is, but the truth is, for as simple as the ingredients are, almost no one does it properly, or at least to my tastes. It’s a genre of near-misses, of bands that never quite put the pieces together. For every Pitch Shifter, a dozen Drowns. For every Swamp Terrorists, a hundred Dynabytes. And that’s before you even start looking for the bands that out-and-out suck. But if that sort of thing appeals to you, like if you think Circle of Dust are awesome, and you own an Ugly Mustard album, then probably you’ll think Dynabyte are okay.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL310

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

LEPER, Laz (1992, demo)

The skull:
An angry skull with fangs, beady eyes and a biomechanical mane of horns and spikes and pipes, this skull isn’t much to look at, but he has a serious attitude. He’s probably furious that someone drew an “L” on his forehead while he was passed out. “You assholes! That’s permanent marker! I don’t care how wasted I was, this isn’t fucking funny. I have a big interview with the Voivod tomorrow and if I can’t get this washed off by then, I’m seriously gonna kill you guys. I don’t even LIKE Leper!”

The music:
I haven’t heard Laz. Seemingly no one has. There are no YouTube videos, no mp3s on Russian metal forums, no torrents, nothing. As far as I can tell, there are exactly two references to this demo on the entire internet. One is the entry on Metal Archives, from which we cribbed this fine skull. The second, bizarrely, is an Amazon listing. A single seller lists a sealed copy of Laz (complete with price sticker residue), and although the artwork is different, the tracklist agrees with the one on Metal Archives. On the original full scan of the skull-fronted cover which can be seen on Metal Archives, a note on the second panel of the J-card reads, “For full color sleeve send $1.00 check or money order made payable to Rick Bettencourt. This sleeve must accompany payment.” The color cover shown on Amazon is so singularly uninteresting that anyone who might have entered into that transaction with Mr. Bettencourt surely wound up disappointed and angry, and might perhaps have sent the color cover back, requesting a refund of the dollar and a return of the original, skull-emblazoned insert. Given that this cassette is sealed, though, it’s possible that there existed a pressing which never included the skull cover, deepening the mystery and no doubt enhancing the collectability of the skully original. And now, dear reader, let me attempt to illustrate the insanity that occasionally grips this friar, by saying that I briefly had that $16.45 cassette (plus $3.99 shipping) in my Amazon shopping cart, such is my zeal to bring you the most accurate information possible about even the obscurest Big Dumb Skull. In the end, or at least for the moment, common sense prevailed, and I removed the cassette from my cart. Common sense, that is, and the fear that expedited shipping would be required to make deadline, as we at Skull HQ don’t shuffle skulls once they’re set in their order. Leper’s Laz, in its full-color, skulless, high-bias glory, remains for sale on Amazon, waiting to be bought, the last earthly proof that this “Heavy Metal” band from New Bedford, MA ever existed. Perhaps it is a lost classic, a demo of unrivaled excellence, a release that could have changed the direction of metal forever. Perhaps it is shitty funk thrash. I would love to know, but even I have my limits. Those limits evidently amount to $20.44.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL105

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

CRYSTAL LAKE, Terror Machine (2007, self-released)

The skull:
It’s like, “how much more brown could this be?” and the answer is, “None. None more brown.” Any cover where the background is basically just noise should set off aesthetic alarms. Yes, I can see that there’s some barbed wire in there, and I guess some… pipes? but really, it just looks like a seamless tile for your evil desktop. It appears that the terror machine is really just an apparatus for skull ventilation, which doesn’t seem so sinister to me.

The music:
Modern thrash with death metal production values. Think Krisiun doing Dew Scented covers or something. Yeah, that good. A strong Slayer influences dominates the riffing, but this being a Brazilian band, there’s a thorough undercurrent of much sloppier oldschool shit derived from German sources. Vocals are a joyless barking. The band is tight, but the songs are dull. If you’re the kind of person who’s totally worn out your Carnal Forge discs, then I guess maybe you’d like Crystal Lake, but if you’re really that kind of person, you’re probably too irony deficient to be reading Big Dumb Skulls in the first place.
— Friar Johnsen