Tag Archives: real

Photo of an actual skull

SKULL373

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AGMEN, Dethroned (2004, Ravenheart)

The skull:
Now that’s what I’m talking about! No Photoshop, no flames, no fucking bullshit. Just a dude in ridiculous bracers gripping a real live skull. That even kind of looks like a genuine piece of bone, and not some plastic replica. It’s still not a very interesting image, but with this cover you know what you’re gonna get: authenticity and boredom. Huzzah!

The music:
I’m not so well versed on Czech black metal, I’m afraid to say. I’ve heard Root and Masters Hammer (neither of whom are particularly pure as black metal goes) and, well, Agmen doesn’t sound like either. This is semi-melodic but generally fast black metal that sounds like something Swedish from the late 90s. A band that’s still all about the darkness and evil, but who also kinda like Dark Tranquillity or something. Think Mithotyn minus the folky bits. It’s not bad, though! Not super awesome, but pretty decent for this sort of thing. Some good riffs, relatively tight songwriting, and sound that’s much better than I was expecting. About the only obviously lame element is the singing, which is half croak, half rasp, but even the vocals are not a deal breaker. I’m probably not going to buy it, because my melodic black metal needs are pretty much already met, but if I was even a little bit more into the genre, I might bite.
— Friar Johnsen

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SPIRITUAL HOLOCAUST, Salute the Death (2010, demo)

The skull:
The best kind of skull for a Big Dumb Skull cover, of course, is a physical object, photographed for the occasion, and Spiritual Holocaust have delivered at least that, it must be said. But, The Council and we Friars would prefer that at least some effort were put into disguising the white plastic skull you bought at the Halloween store as something that might have once encased an actual human brain. Spiritual Holocaust seems to even recognize the lameness of their skull, as their members have been here caught on film in the middle of a pathetic game of hot potato, one guy trying to pass off the shoddy dimestore replica skull on his fellow. There is no escaping this shame, though.

The music:
Mid-paced Finnish death metal. Not melodic, but not totally assonant, either. Being Finnish, and of recent vintage, Spiritual Holocaust are totally capable, and no one can impugn their skill as players, but their late-to-the-party Swedish-style death metal is as artlessly made as it is professionally produced. If you’re a die-hard for this sort of thing, or if you’re in the market for a farm-league Demigod, then you might add these guys to your collection without a second thought, but it’s highly unlikely they’d get a second listen. You’d spin Salute the Death (or, more likely, their lone full length album) once, think, “That was pretty good,” and then forget about them almost forever, until one of the guitarists ends up in a slightly better band, and you notice a mention of Spiritual Holocaust in their bio, and you absently think to yourself, “I think I have one of their discs…” before drifting to another, even less interesting thought. In fact, I just had to double-check who I was writing about in the first place. Potent mediocrity!
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL231

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DEFCON, Flat Black Philosophy (2010, Bit Riot)

The skull:
We’ve seen skulls in niches before, but this is the first metaloskull in a technoniche (such as would fittingly honor this guy). And while the skull is obviously just spray painted, I have to say, I’m at least a little impressed by the composition here. Someone came up with the marginally interesting idea to reframe this ancient scene in modern, post-industrial trappings, and it works. Sadly, the cover doesn’t make any sense in the context of the title, but at least there is, as I shall presently explain, a thematic bridge from the cover to the music.

The music:
Remember Circle of Dust? Of course you don’t. They were a Christian industrial metal band on the REX label (along with Believer!) who released three moderately good albums in the early/mid-90s before main dude Scott Albert ran off to do an album or two with frat magician Criss Angel (called Angeldust, get it?) Now he’s working the dubstep circuit as Celldweller. What does this have to do with Defcon? Absolutely nothing! Well, except that Defcon sounds, to these ears, identical to Circle of Dust. And that’s not a bad thing. Industrial metal is notoriously hard to pull off; many have tried, but few have succeeded in blending what seems eminently blendable. The fundamental problem, I think, is that the dancier demands of industrial require steadier beats and less variation in the arrangements compared to metal, where the best bands tend to cycle through a lot of riffs and rhythms. Finding the middle ground is obviously harder than it would appear, and groups that fail tend to sound like half-assed KMFDM tribute acts, which is to say, most fail on the side of the side of industrial. Sometimes Defcon falls into this trap, and the Ministry lifts are many, but for the most part, Defcon makes the formula work. Their programming is appropriately sinister, and the riffs, while not especially creative, are at least properly metallic. I’m even occasionally reminded of Passage-era Samael. Defcon aren’t about to dethrone Pitch Shifter as the greatest industrial metal group of all time, but considering how rare a beast is the enjoyable industrial metal album, Flat Black Philosophy is a welcome addition to the canon.
— 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

SKULL69

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DR. SKULL, Wory Zover (1990, ADA Müzik)

The skull:
Look at that fuzzy pink mohawk. Just look at it! And the golden snake earing. And the out-of-focus band picture. And the fog. And the FROG. Then look at the mohawk again. If Big Dumb Skulls were a contest, this would probably win. Shit, no “probably” about it. This is the ne plus ultra of BDSery, the pinnacle of the form. Also, the skull’s name is Vehbi.

The music:
Although this came out in 1990 (really!) it sounds like a time capsule buried in 1982. Dr. Skull were Turkish, but they sound most like early Scandinavian bands such as Gotham City or Heavy Load, plus of course those bands’s NWOBHM contemporaries. Dr. Skull are never particularly heavy, exhibiting a strong hard rock undercurrent, but if we admit there’s a fine line between early (sounding) metal and rock, this definitely lands on the right side for us, decked out in singing guitar harmonies and huge vocal choruses with hooks aplenty. The lyrics are in English, and in fact the title of the album is a play on words, a homophone for “War Is Over”. A strong anti-war sentiment permeates the entire album (which actually opens with a metalized take on “When Johnny Comes Marching Back”), and this friar finds the band’s earnestness very endearing. The thin and cheap production perfectly suits the music and further strengthens the illusion of early 80sness that enshrouds the entire project. If you’ve tapped out the NWOBHM and have all the FWOSHM material you can afford, you could do a lot worse than tracking down a copy of this excellent little obscurity.
— Friar Johnsen

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MALEFICIO, Under the Black Veil (2008, Hateworks)

The skull:
Under a gloriously unreadable logo flies a skull, seemingly blasted out of a cannon into the yellow glow of dawn. Or perhaps it’s an LSD-influenced vision by the same artist who conceived the band logo, the skull an illusion created by the dense cloud formation, although what this all has to do with being under a black veil is not entirely clear.

The music:
Unless somebody’s pulling our leg, this Swedish band released 18 demos between 1991 and 2004, and have experimented with their death/black/thrash metal formula by occasionally mixing in flutes and violins. So what we get on their 2008 debut full-length should be astoundingly good and focused, right? Well, it’s just kinda average. Reasonably well-executed death/black metal with some thrashy hints, reminding of the days when bands like Mayhem, Cradle of Filth and Impaled Nazarene weren’t exclusively black metal, but a hodgepodge of sub-genre intersections. What’s even more incredible is not that Maleficio have stuck with it for so long with very little reward, but the fact that they’re one of the only long-running Swedish extreme metal bands where the members aren’t also in 10 other bands. It’s kind of amazing, considering the band’s longevity, but the eight songs here are uninteresting and rather faceless, lacking any sort of individual character, just like the skull that graces the cover.
–Friar Wagner

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The skull:
As a piece of “art,” this cover is freaking horrible. As a skull cover, we give it major props. We have a real skull grinning a stupid grin (the missing tooth indicates this skull may have belonged to a redneck), with some creature’s (or human’s) glowing orange eye hovering menacingly behind it, almost stealing the skull’s thunder. There is photoshop fire on either side of the skull’s jaw, and very unconvincing-looking fire at that. Add a really lame band logo to all this total nonsense and you’ve got an album cover that we’re happy to have in the Skullection, but also glad isn’t sitting in our personal CD libraries. Gaudy.

The music:
Workmanlike traditional heavy metal with a thick thread of hard rock embedded inside. Kinda like Michael Schenker Group meets Krokus. There’s a speedy element to it, but not anything we can call “speed metal.” They’re trying, but the songs never gel, are kinda messy in terms of arrangement, and sometimes feel downright silly in overall vibe. The strong accent of singer Vitto and the plastic-sounding drums don’t help. Nor does that album cover. Or the band name. Or song titles like “Wolf Over 3D” and “Rock is My DJ.” Or anything. There’s a lot of dreck in the Italian heavy metal scene, and this isn’t the worst of it, but there are certainly much better. Pass.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL32

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MASSGRAV, Still the Kings (2012, Selfmadegod)

The skull:
Looks like a really good drawing of a really good photo of a really good skull. It’s big and bold and extremely proud to be a big dumb skull. Probably a product of the band not really sure what to depict in relation to the album title. This is crusty thrashing grindcore sort of stuff, and Massgrav is not the kind of band that would depict themselves on thrones with crowns on their heads or any sort of thing like that. The triangle behind the skull gives an added symmetry to the design, maybe suggesting “pyramid power” (remember that?), maybe not.

The music:
Crust punk and grindcore are obnoxious forms of extreme music, but there’s a thick dividing wall between obnoxious in the jokey sense and obnoxious in the “this is absurdly fast and heavy” sense. Massgrav fit into the latter compartment, firing off short round after short round of angry, belligerent, inspired crust/grind. Like a punkier, thrashier Nasum, maybe. Simple, serious and to the point, like the skullwork on the cover.
— Friar Wagner

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BLODULV, III – Burial (2005, Eerie Art)

The skull:
Staggering in its simplicity, we have yet another black-and-white photograph of a skull on a black background. That’s it. Its lower mandible is missing, as seems to be all the rage in the world of real skulls. You need springs to keep a skull intact, and apparently these are in short supply or something. The Blodulv logo, a boring old stock font we’ve seen a million times over, is superimposed on the forehead. We love it big and dumb here at Big Dumb Skulls HQ, and it doesn’t get any more exemplary than this. 10 out of 10 fucking skulls.

The music:
Blodulv are a minor but noteworthy entry in the pantheon of 2000s-era U.S. black metal. They kept it more traditional than the disturbed psychedelia of peer bands such as Xasthur and Leviathan. Blodulv sounds downright polite, really, recalling Under a Funeral Moon- / Transilvanian Hunger-era Darkthrone. I know, YAAAWWN, right? Those are such highly copied albums, and there’s nothing better than the original. And even Darkthrone, love their early stuff as I do, were not exactly original on those influential albums. So, Blodulv is dust now, leaving three albums and numerous demos, splits and EPs behind as legacy. Next!!!
–Friar Wagner

 

SKULL21

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IRON MONKEY, Ruined By Idiots: Live and Unleashed (2002, Maniac Beast)

The skull:
A closeup of a skull in a light box. As cheap and bland as possible. Maximum stupidity from a band that specialized in the same.

The music:
By the time Iron Monkey’s debut was released on Earache, it was clear that the label was ruined forever. Sure, in the early days there were Sore Throat and Fudge Tunnel albums to contend with, but at least there were Bolt Throwers, Carcasses, Nocturni, and so on to keep the average high. When Iron Monkey dropped, they shared roster space with Ultraviolence, Dub War, and Pulkas. Truly a dark time. At least Iron Monkey were undeniably a metal band, even if they were just a shitty British take on Helmet and Clutch. Ruined By Idiots collects all the live and radio sessions (plus a few studio cuts) that you labored so diligently to avoid in the first place.
— Friar Johnsen