SKULL70

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Friar Wagner

AMMIT, Hammer of Darkness (2005, From Beyond Productions)

The skull:
A somewhat forlorn looking skull (but don’t they all look bummed?), encircled in a ring of bombs. Traditional white on black, with the stock Olde English font that black metal bands have favored since the Bathory days. There’s really not much more to say here, the cover is simple, clean and mean. The skull could have been bigger, perhaps. Note that there’s no hammer around whatsoever, of darkness or otherwise. (“The hammer of darkness is in your miiiind, man!”)

The music:
This is the strain of black metal sometimes referred to as “black ‘n’ roll,” but really it’s just the oldest of old-school black metal, clearly influenced by Motorhead, Venom and Bathory, and certainly the German thrash gods of the ’80s and Brazilian bands like Vulcano and Sarcofago. These Chileans keep it real and rockin’, the closest reference point being the first two Bathory albums. Although those can’t ever be bested, Ammit does a fair job of laying it down and keeping pedal to metal for nearly 39 minutes. The music is mid-paced to thrash-speed fast (ie. it never blasts) and while most of it definitely rocks, something like “Black Plagues” gets a bit more murky and chaotic. Highlights are found in the total worship of Bathory’s first album, “Dogs from Hell,” and the ripping “Power Means Death Power.” The vocals snarl and croak like early Quorthon, but you can also hear some Udo Dirkschneider in the phrasing and barking delivery. Which is perfect for the cover of Accept’s “Fast as a Shark.” For what this album is, it’s very good.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL69

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

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

SKULL68

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Friar Wagner

SINNER, Mask of Sanity (2007, MTM)

The skull:
The very first skull in the Skullection is Krokus’ Headhunter. That cover is a masterpiece of skull-and-crossbones simplicity. Sinner’s Mask of Sanity is a whole lot like that album cover, just on fire. Fire burns in the eyes, on the left cheek, on the head, even on the bones behind it. You might think that the skull, to use a song title on the album, “Can’t Take the Heat.” Neither can the wall of red clay behind it, which apparently is cracked from the heat. So, is this the mask of sanity? It doesn’t look sane. Or has the mask of sanity burned off? Which would make this skull insane. Perplexing.

The music:
This is Sinner’s 14th album. They’ve been around forever. I feel like I’ve been around forever too, but have had very few meetings with the music of bassist Mat Sinner and company. And although I appreciate what they’re doing on this album, it’s a little lackluster. “The Other Side” comes out swinging its cock in an almost glam-metal sort of swagger; “The Sign” is a dull plod with some strained, off-key vocals. “Thunder Roar” has a bit more depth, with a cool piano theme paired with organ and chugging metal histrionics, its first minute being the most exciting thing on this album. There’s a cover of Thin Lizzy’s “Baby Please Don’t Go” that does no favors to the original, although it’s a damn fine attempt at nailing the killer guitar solos of the original. The vocals throughout are throaty and, uh, manly without being overly gruff. Kinda Blaze Bayley-like, but better than that. The music skirts the line between traditional heavy metal and AOR, which explains MTM’s interest. Ultimately, what’s happening here is territory that Sweden’s Nocturnal Rites have begun to explore and, frankly, they’re better at it than these long-running, hard-working metal vets. But hey, respect…lots of respect.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL67

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

FOUL STENCH, The Bone (2007, Ukraugh Productions)

The skull:
A super close-up of a shadowy skull, this BDS begs the question: which bone is the bone? The human skull at adulthood is composed of (roughly) 22 separate bones, although this fellow here, lacking a jaw as he does, would be made up of fewer. So which one is it? The sphenoid? The ethmoid? One of the superior maxillaries? I suppose it could even be the vomer, although I should doubt that even Foul Stench are so gauche. One thing is certain: if this album had been called The Tooth we wouldn’t have nearly so much to speculate about.

The music:
After recording three demos in the late 90s, Foul Stench broke up, but nearly ten dormant years later, they regrouped at last. Demand for the Stench was simply too great to ignore! From every corner of the internet, devoted fans begged, pleaded, for Foul Stench to rise again, and the Stench, beholden as they are to the devotion of their public, put past differences aside and came together anew to deliver unto the world the moderately competent death metal it so sorely lacked. The Bone is the first comeback release from these Dayton stalwarts, featuring such now-classic Stench cuts as “Pack a Bowl,” “Skull Fukd,” and “Singing About Pussy”. Honestly, The Bone is not nearly as bad as I was afraid it would be: imagine a mix of early Obituary and Gorefest with a liberal pinch of D-beat, and you’ve more or less got it. The sound is good and the performances are all around above average for this sort of thing. No, it’s not winning any prizes for originality, but when you’re talking about weed-obsessed midwestern death metal, expectations must be calibrated appropriately.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL66

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Friar Wagner

MEGADETH, Killing is My Business…And Business is Good! (reissue) (2002, Loud)

The skull:
This joins Devastation’s Idolatry as one of few albums to make the Skullection twice. The first goes all the way back to Skull15, where Friar Johnsen took a look at the original cover from 1985. And there’s really no beating the original, but this updated version makes some kind of sense, adding the newer and more popular Megadeth logo to a painted interpretation of the original cover concept. That concept? A metal plate riveted across the skull’s eyes and figure eight-ish hooks in mouth. The chains from the original design are here attached to big earpieces that almost look like headphones. The bones ‘n’ blades behind the skull add some sizzle to the overall design. The skull even has a couple pieces of spinal column attached, but not enough to disqualify it under the “no skeletons” rule. A pretty snazzy looking cover, the added accoutrements are nice, but the original is still where it’s at.

The music:
I guess Loud Records is some short-lived subsidiary of Capitol Records or something. And it was they who put out this reissue of Megadeth’s excellent debut. Friar Johnsen ably spoke to the importance and awesomeness of Killing… in his earlier review, and I concur 100%. Special mention needs to be made of “Looking Down the Cross,” which might be this Friar’s favorite-ever Megadeth song, but there’s a large handful of others contending for that title. This remixed version of Killing… is good, and while I prefer the wiry, thin sound of the original, the beefier, bassier mix here works pretty well too. There are a lot of sonic differences between this and the original, and if you love this album as much as we do, you’ll look for any excuse to have the thrill of buying it again. What’s frustrating is the bleeped-to-shit version of “These Boots,” which might have been better excised entirely. Even more frustrating is how they (“they” being Mustaine?) fucked with the original track order, placing “These Boots” at the end and not in position four as on the original. Extra bonus comes in the first ever official issuing of their three-song 1984 demo, a super-raw, ultra-frantic view into the band’s earliest recorded material. Like the album itself, it totally kills. They don’t make ’em like this anymore, that’s for sure.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL65

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Friar Wagner

SOUTHERN FLAME, Whiskey Metal (2007, self-released)

The skull:
Big ol’ skull looms over a rebel flag motif which itself is placed over a more distant photo of the woods. Everything is green (more the color of absinthe than whiskey) and the skull is stretch on the horizontal so that the dome of the skull is square and the eyes are so wide it almost appears as if the skull’s wearing sunglasses. A lame logo is stamped over the forehead. Ugly as hell cover art, but the skull certainly qualifies as “big” AND “dumb.”

The music:
Just looking at the band name, the album title and the cover artwork (and song title “Dang Doe Tango”), I figured this West Virginia band was going to sound a lot like Black Label Society. Sure enough, it does. Take the song “Dixie Metal.” Generic, mid-paced chunka-chunka riffs that have zero personality, with a vocalist that sounds like a totally drunk Phil Anselmo meets Zakk Wylde. It’s like the NOLA sludge sound infused with tons of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Just the kind of junk I will go out of my way to avoid, so…I’m outta here, I cannot take any more Southern Flame. I don’t like whiskey either.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL64

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

Zandelle, Zandelle (1996, demo)

The skull:
Black cover, logo, skull, deep shadows. Textbook! He’s certainly angry looking, with the faint red glow in his sockets and the blood dripping from his teeth (fangs?) onto his chin. He looks like he was painted without reference material, just from the memory of other big dumb skulls. Seriously tr00. And for as crappy as this skull is, the band actually recycled it for their 2011 release Shadows of the Past, which featured re-recorded versions of songs from this and other early demos. That cover repeats the skull several times, though, disqualifying it for inclusion in the Skullection.

The music:
In the mid 90s, there weren’t many bands in the States playing old fashioned melodic heavy metal. One of those was Gothic Knights, and when their singer (George Tsalikis) left after releasing one album with the band, he jumped into Zandelle. Neither band was ever very good, sounding like bands that weren’t quite good enough to make Metal Massacre 8, but their hearts were in the right place, I guess. The riffing is dull, the drumming bland, and the songs cliche, but at least the singer was actually singing, and not just trying to out-aggro Rob Flynn, as was the fashion in those days. This sort of too-true-for-school stuff is just too backwards looking for me most of the time, and Zandelle is no exception, but this does take me back to those days when any metal song with a melody line was enough to perk the ears.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL63

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Friar Wagner

L’ACEPHALE, Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted (2009, Radical Matters Editions)

The skull:
Similar to the Witchtrap skull (SKULL54), we have an overhead (no pun intended) view of a skull ridden with writing on its cranium. The scrawl is either Spanish or Portugese, and the book that the skull rests upon is slightly Bible-ish, but more like a hymnal or stanzas of an epic poem. Looks like a photograph, and quite a good one at that. Classy and creepy at once.

The music:
I’m suspicious of seemingly hipster-born black metal from either Portland, Oregon or San Francisco, California. Not without good reason, but some of the bands cropping up in these hotbeds of neo-black metal are actually pretty interesting. This Portland band’s name means “Headless” (totally different than “skulless,” mind you) and their metal is black and epic, having the forest-y vibe of early Ulver and early Fleurety, with some tasteful keyboards providing additional atmosphere and some pitched vocals similar to Garm’s voice in the Bergtatt era. But they do a lot more, too. This particular track was originally on their Malefeasance album, but here it is in an extended remix that’s all kinds of fucked up, although I can’t tell you how it differs from the original, sorry. I do know the original is 23 minutes, whereas this remix? A cozy 93 minutes. And fuck no I didn’t listen to the whole thing. It’s probably not the best representation of the band either, or at least it provides a good view into their more avant-garde tendencies, incorporating folk, ritualistic ambient drone, and noise. Heady stuff.– Friar Wagner

SKULL62

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Friar Johnsen

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

SKULL61

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Friar Wagner

DEADTHORN, Daleko od Boga… (2010, demo)

The skull:
Appropriately grim and straightforward, this cover shows a skull at the forefront with a headstone looming behind it. The design is very traditional black metal, white on black, no fancy shit whatsoever…although they really could have used a crazier logo.

The music:
Formed by members of all your favorite Polish bands like Anathemized, Grin, Mastiphal and Calvaria, this band offers raw, mid-paced black metal, freezing and bleak in the old school way. Can get a bit chaotic and tedious in faster sections, and a bit dull in the slower passages. The snare drum is a thin, wet slap, which pairs well with the buzzing, treble-loaded guitar tone. Vocals are, surprise surprise, somewhat varied, giving a deathly tone to what is basically Dissection-style death/black meets early Gorgoroth style black metal with a sort of Greek twist, if you know what I mean. Not bad, but not offering anything new either. (Get ready…I say that a lot.)
— Friar Wagner