Tag Archives: smoke

SKULL612

Posted on by
Reply

LOTRIFY, Demo  (2011, demo)

The skull:
Demo. This is the album cover for this demo, the Lotrify demo. The one called Demo. The one with the skull on it. The one in which the skull cries tears of blood because he’s been relegated to a demo called Demo. From a Swiss band nobody really cares about. But he’s got a massive fucking canine and he’s gonna bite down on that logo for all its worth, to show his fellow skull pals, the ones from the Krokus, Overkill and Saint Vitus covers, that he, too, is to be feared!!!

The music:
Demo. This is music from the demo, the Lotrify demo. The one called Demo. And not only does it sounds like a demo, but the composition and delivery is clearly coming from kids who have just started trying to figure out how to write a song. They’re probably influenced by Metallica, Megadeth, Evergrey and Sanctuary, from the sound of it. They clearly have a long way to go before they can match the achievements of those bands, but they’re clearly capable, from a pure performance level, except for the vocalist. Each instrument-wielder seems pretty capable, the drums and bass sometimes outclassing the occasional ham-fisted guitar part, but for overall it’s a laudable effort. The vocalist, well, he’s pretty much crap. Not only does he warble weakly in his semi-melodic, semi-Hetfield-ian delivery, but the lyrics are laughable. And the songs themselves, these are not great, and are sometimes a hell of a mess (“Shadow of the Unknown”). And guess what “Sahara” does? It features mystical Eastern melodies. Bet you didn’t see that coming. The vocals in “Sahara” are amongst the poorest I’ve heard since starting this blog and these lyrics show that there is not even the slightest attempt at metaphor. This is what’s happening, right here! “I’m walking through Sahara without water in my bag /
The heat is smashing me down and my sight is turning red/ I trip over my own feet and my body hits the sandy floor.” But okay, they’re young. I’d say the cover of Demo advertises exactly what you get when the music starts playing. It’s time to get lotrified people! Lotrify it up! Omednikcufecin!
— Friar Wagner

SKULL484

Posted on by
4

SEPULTURA, Beneath the Remains  (1989, Roadrunner)

The skull:
When this album was released, it sat on record store shelves looking utterly innovative. The cover design may not seem so interesting nowadays, but back then it didn’t look like the rest. No big gaudy metal logo, the vertically-written album title with that curious red bar added arty nuance. The off-center picture surrounded by all that black lent a stark quality to the cover, and the skull itself was so surrealisticly adorned that the whole thing just looked remarkably different than your average death or thrash metal album cover of the era. The Michael Whelan skull is a beaut, its downcast gaze nearly falling off the edge of the album cover, carrying on its head roses, a wombat (I suppose), a graveyard, miscellaneous medallions, and a hole in its head that seeps wispy trails of smoke. This skull has a lot on its mind. Seriously, folks, this is one of the finest skull covers in the Skullection, at least as serious, non-humourous skull covers go.

The music:
After Sepultura’s deliciously crude early recordings and the transitional raw thrash of Schizophrenia, these Brazilians emerged as masters of the death/thrash craft with Beneath the Remains. Incredibly tight, frantic, semi-technical, dark and overflowing with top-notch riffs, there isn’t a finer example of the early merger of death and thrash metal than this. While it’s not perfect (“Sarcastic Existence” and “Lobotomy” don’t resonate with memorable highlights like the rest), it’s way better than most albums by most bands. Everything Schizophrenia attempted to reach and only got halfway toward is successfully achieved here. Sepultura had honed their sound into something with more definition and power than the band they had been prior to this. Beneath the Remains rightfully deserves its place as a classic. If songs such as the title track, “Inner Self,” “Mass Hypnosis” and “Slaves of Pain” aren’t immediately familiar, your metal diet is lacking in an essential, life-giving nutrient. There’s no need to review this masterpiece further. You either love it or you’re living a life of deprivation.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL383

Posted on by
Reply

HAIL! HORNET, Disperse the Curse (2011, Relapse)

The skull:
This looks like an all-digital ode to Pushead, but that’s not so bad. I guess he’s chomping through a net or something, maybe a beekeepers mask. Does anyone keep hornets like bees? Probably not – why would you? But the more I think of it, the more this kind of looks like some kind of attack on an apiarist, what with the smoke in the background. I guess if you’re on team hornet, you’d probably have some kind of beef with team bee, so maybe that’s it. Send the skull over to fuck that guy’s hives up, show him who the real kings of the Apocrita suborder are. “I’m here to disperse the curse! And by curse, I mean your teeth, motherfucker” Wham!

The music:
I expected full-on Kylesa-style sludgy crap when I queued this up, and given the pedigree of Hail! Hornet’s members (Buzzoven, Weedeater, and Alabama Thunderpussy) I think I was not crazy to do so. But while the vocals are full-on supershitty, the rest of the band are actually alright, sounding kinda like something not-too-popular on Earache Records in 1992. The music splits the difference between English grindcore (the slow parts, ha ha) and Scandinavian death rock. It’s simple, but it’s well done, and the grimy but not fuzzy production is perfectly suited to it. The problem is, the songs don’t have a whole lot going on. They tend to inhabit a fairly narrow range of tempos, and man, that vocalist is really bad. He sounds like some run-down tweaker with pneumonia. I’ll give these guys credit for exceeding my dire expectations, and for easily besting the next best thing any of them has done, but I think they’ll need to improve a bit before I truly care.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL170

Posted on by
Reply

GODS OF FIRE, Wrath of the Gods  (2004, Black Thirteen)

The skull:
Man, this one whips up one magickal psychedelic visage of a skull! Look into those eyes…weird organic matter, like black lava swirling and cooling, with what looks like elaborately sculpted smoke whirling up the sides, with teeth that are not human and some pretty good looking gums, considering the advanced state of decay this person has gone through by this point. This person with the teeth of a badger. And then, yes, lots of fire burning below, a recurring theme for many a skull album cover. The skull itself almost gets lost in all this madness.

The music:
Gods Of Fire sounds influenced by King Diamond, Sanctuary, Iron Maiden and Manowar. Unfortunately, listening to these eight songs and 53 minutes is a chore. Their hearts are in the right place, but it’s pretty low-rent stuff. Too many ham-fisted stabs at grandiosity (“Promethus Unbound”), some flat-out bad notes (the guitar themes that open “Nectar of the Gods”), and vocals that try for a wide range but are dull and powerless at every turn. Sometimes the musicianship is pretty good, despite weak spots, but there’s this overall void running throughout that makes it feel like parody. The recording is far too dry, which doesn’t help their cause. It’s frustrating to listen to a band reaching for golden heights only to come back with greasy scraps. I cheer for them with part of my heart while my entire brain says, “No…please…no.” On a fun little note, their second album is called Hanukkah Gone Metal. I am not kidding. Here’s a lyric from “No Gelt, No Glory”: “No Gelt No Glory baby / I let it ride on Gimel must walk away a winner now / No Gelt No Glory baby / If you want to play then baby gimme a ‘HEI!'” The first line goes “With the dreidel in my hand I give it a lucky whirl.” It’s sure more interesting than the stock-mythology lyrics running throughout Wrath of the Gods.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL62

Posted on by
1

IRON GIANT, Creator of Scars (2008, Diminished Fifth)

The skull:
Looking like something from the discount wall at the local tattoo parlor, this low-detail skull is wreathed in some kind of smoke. Some specific kind of smoke, I’m thinking. Since the album is called Creator of Scars, I guess we can assume that it’s some sort of chemical weapon or otherwise militarized vapor. Yeah, that’s probably it. The oddest detail of this skull is the lack of shading in the eyesockets. I guess under high light (heh heh, I said “high”) there wouldn’t be a great contrast, but dark sockets are such a deep-rooted convention that its flouting really throws me off here. From the looks of it, though, that decision might have been practical, because as it is, this cover can be printed with only three spot colors. Frugal.

The music:
Iron Giant are the sort of band to affect calling themselves “rock and roll” when they’re pretty obviously a metal band, specifically a stoner metal band. Offering exactly the same mix of Sabbath riffs and super sounds of the seventies that literally 100% of all other stoner metal bands offer, Iron Giant are clearly not out to change the world. I guess they do the style well enough, though, and singer Chris Lewis is better than a lot of his peers, but so what? This is by definition low-ambition music, and unless you already own dozens (or more) albums exactly like this, you probably don’t own a single one, and never will.
— Friar Johnsen