SKULL396

FILTHEATER, Tenebrae  (2011, Plague)

The skull:
The largest picture we have of this cover isn’t huge, but it looks like those are maggots shivering out from under the skull, having fed on the fleshy gunk left behind by the poor decomposed subject. Looking at the bigger picture, one wonders: At what temperature do maggots melt? It must be an extremely high one, and I’ve arrived at this conclusion because not only did the candles flanking the skull melt, but it appears to be so hot in there that the skull’s cheek bones turned into Richard Nixon-esque jowls. Take a look! We have not seen the likes of this before here at Big Dumb Skulls HQ, and likely will never see it again. [The Elders of the Council of the Skull have awarded a special badge of honor to Filtheater, as every single one of their releases features a skull, skulls, or a human head that’s real close to becoming a skull.]

The music:
Now this is chaotic noise-drenched death metal a guy can rock out to. I quite like this little EP, a caustic, ripping, raw 20 minutes that sort of sounds like Brutal Truth covering Nuclear Death. The drumming and overall production aesthetic resembles Brutal Truth, and the noise-factor, including riffs that sound like they were written by a tone-deaf guitarist, are evocative of my beloved Nuclear Death. The ability is here, with every member capably delivering their part of the bloodthirsty, unhinged madness. It’s clear this band truly believe in what they’re doing and their sound is more convincing than many modern-day US death metal bands content to rip off Incantation a little too closely. There’s a crust vibe in spots, and big chunks of Fiend for Blood-era Autopsy too, yet Filtheater emerges from the wreckage with a sound that, while showing its influences, is pretty much all their own. I don’t yet own anything by this band, but as soon as they compile these tape and ridiculously-limited EP releases into some sort of collection, I’m buyin’.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL395

INFINITUM OBSCURE, Ipsus Universum (2009, Blood Harvest)

The skull:
Originally released as half of a split with Ancient Gods on Utterly Somber Creations in 2003, these Infinitum Obscure tracks were later reissued as a standalone 10″, and that’s when they were graced with this excellent skull cover. That swirly shit in the background is maybe a callback to the original art, which was just a lame purple vortex, but obviously, the real attraction here is the skull egg issuing a bat-winged demon baby made of fire. I can’t even believe how awesome that description sounds, and I’m sure I can’t add to the greatness of this image. Let’s just bask for a moment in its magnificence. You know, before that demon baby grows up and eats us alive or impregnates our skulls or whatever. It’s best not to think where this is all headed, really.

The music:
Ipsus Universum is a pretty even mix of death and black metal, reminding me of mid-period Old Man’s Child (In Defiance of Existence and Vermin), when they mostly dropped the keyboards and got back to their death metal roots. This is riffy and dense music, with a lot of musical twists and some fairly impressive playing. Infinitum Obscure are definitely fans of Morbid Angel, too, but that sound unsurprisingly meshes well with 6/8 black metal. All in all, this is an intense listen, and a very well-crafted release. I’m not often in the mood for this sort of thing, but I might have to track this down for those times when I am. The production is a little murkier than I like, and the vocals are hit or miss, but the music is great and the vibe is pretty seriously evil. Usually the abuse of Latin is a clear-cut signal of awfulness in metal, but somehow Infinitum Obscure have bucked the trend.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL394

SIGN OF THE JACKAL, The Beyond  (2011, Heavy Artillery)

The skull:
“Limited Edition,” eh? Life is a limited edition, and this fact is underscored by the skull on the cover. No nonsense, no manipulation, no fancy stuff — just a grim reminder that this is all we’re left with at the end. But you know what they say:  live well and leave a pretty skull. And this skull leaves a shinier, rounder dome than most. Call him the Kojak of skulls. The design is a deliberate attempt to look all 1983 even though it’s 2011, and I suspect that, given that clue and the fact this is on Heavy Artillery, we’re not dealing with avant-garde cutting edge metal here. I could be wrong.

The music:
I’ve been wrong on many occasions about a lot of things, but not this time. Sign Of The Jackal are indeed throwbacks to a simpler time in metal, when skulls were skulls and men wore tiger-striped spandex without any sense of irony whatsoever. Then again, it’s hardly genius-level intuition that brought me to this prediction. SotJ play straightforward, tried-and-true trad-metal…so true, in fact, that it sounds like metal forged in the days prior to thrash (think 1982). The vocals of Laura Coller are not strong, yet she still manages to impress thanks to some memorable, what we used to called “commercial” sounding harmonies (a great example being “Night of the Undead”). There’s an instrumental here called “Paganini Horror,” which sounds like a Great Kat song title, but it’s better (would be difficult not to be better than the Great Kat). A couple other originals go in one ear and out the other, although it’s hard to not enjoy them just a tiny bit as they fly by. Then there’s a cover song, “Head Over Heels.” Not the great Accept nugget, but some band called Meghan. I didn’t bother researching further, because it’s pretty weak. The originals boast lyrics that are hilariously lame — a composite of them would read thusly: “zombies awaiting your cursed metal bones tonight,” complete with some egregious grammatical errors. But they hail from Italy, and their English is certainly better than my Italian, so we’ll give them a pass. I give this band some credit and I give them some grief, but they’re better than anything I’ve heard by, say, Girlschool, which is a fair enough comparison. In fact, this sits somewhere in between “classic” Girlschool and the decidedly tougher sound of early Chastain, if we’re talking about female-fronted heavy metal. And that’s exactly what we’re talking about. But no more, because the EP is over and I probably won’t stick around for a third listen.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL393

ROTTREVORE, Disembodied  (2005, Necroharmonic)

The skull:
This is an appealing piece of skull art, rendered in a semi-Seagrave kind of style, as if the acid Dan took that day was weaker than his usual dose. This isn’t Seagrave at all, as far as I know, but there are some stylistic similarities. Not so much in the skull, but certainly those horn-like, tentacle-ish, large intestine-esque things have a Seagrave sort of flair to them. They’re so cool and trippy that I lose all focus on the skull, who sits there amidst all this stuff going “Hey, what about me???” And he is worth a look, especially those teeth. Might wanna slap a gold grill on those choppers.

The music:
I have always loved Rottrevore at a distance. Their commitment to being the heaviest of the heaviest death metal is appreciated, and I like them a song at a time, but they get dull rather quickly. You have to marvel at the obscene guitar/bass sounds, which combine to resemble a big-ass tractor engine. “Actions for Loss” is a prime example of their approach (and a highly unusual song title for an English-speaking death metal band), as is the entirety of their Copulation of the Virtuous and Vicious 7″. Those songs and more are all here on Disembodied, a collection of demo, EP and compilation tracks from the good old days (early 1990s). I applaud how ridiculously heavy these guys are, and I probably should have picked up this compilation when it was released, because it’s nowhere to be found these days. That way I could live with my decision to sell my Copulation 7″ years ago. I kind of regret that now, because Disembodied is sounding really good at the moment. Oh, wait, I just got bored with them again.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL392

BLACK BONES, Pirates of the Coast (2009, Black Blood Brigade)

The skull:
This cover is good enough to be the sign for the premier attraction in the finest of New Jersey’s boardwalk amusement parks. Taste the salty tang of adventure as you plunge more than two stories on the most piratical roller coaster you can experience for eight tickets in the peak season.

The music:
The entire BDS project is an exercise in sustained redundancy, but I nevertheless find it astonishing that I’m being called on to review another Italian pirate metal album. The last one, by Los Pirates, was actually quite good. Good enough that after reviewing it, I purchased it. I can’t say the same of Black Bones. Half the time, they’re only about as metal as a Misfits tribute band with a little more distortion on their guitars, but the other half, they’re at least as heavy as your average folk metal band. The music is rudimentary but I guess catchy enough, in the stupidest way possible. The songs are basically what you’d expect from pirate metal — singalong punk metal sea shanties — but the vocals are abysmal. Imagine Glenn Danzig doing an impression of an Italian Elvis impersonator. Go on, imagine it! But even if the singer had been awesome, this would still be a shitty album. It’s bad enough to sing about pirates; the moment you start sounding like you want people to know you’re singing about pirates, well, it’s all over.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL391

GHJTTATURA, Dai Su Entre (2008, demo)

The skull:
Of all the Big Dumb Skulls I’ve looked at, this has to be one of the ugliest. At least it’s not brown, and I do like the pinky ring on the severed hand (so Italian!), but really, what’s going on here? My best guess is that it comments on the fine prepositional distinction between tripping on acid and tripping into acid. Grindcore for grammarians.

The music:
This basically sounds like a Napalm Death rehearsal demo circa 2004, although to be fair, the raspy vocals would never be mistaken for those of Mr. Greenway (who also rarely sings in Sardinian, as far as I know). Grind doesn’t do much for me, and so I can’t claim to be an expert in any way, but to my untrained ears these songs sound alright. For grind, that is. I mean, they sound terrible, but they’re reasonably well written. Some of the riffs, namely the ones unaccompanied by blasting, are good. But, when the blasting sets in, lord knows what else is going on. This is partly a problem endemic to all blasting, but here the confusion is exacerbated by the garage-quality production. You’d have to be pretty hardcore for grindcore to go for this, I’ll assume, but it seems like no one who likes grind likes it casually, so maybe Ghjttatura have what it takes to go all the way. All the way to a 2:30 pm slot at Maryland Death Fest, that is.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL390

MYSTIC PROPHECY, Ravenlord (2011, Massacre)

The skull:
If this dude is the Ravenlord, he might want to start looking for a successor. Bleeding from the head is never good, especially when all you’ve got left of your corporeal existence is a skull. You’re pretty much reaching the end at that point. The wings that sprout from behind his head are apparently attached to him, and perhaps these are acting as his deliverance to some unspecified afterlife-type location. Who the fuck knows. The ravens shown in mirror image above the wings: are these Polar Ravens? Because they look snowy. With all the occult-ish nonsense in the background, I’m starting to think this cover was supposed to look evil, but really I just want to be the good samaritan, get a big Band-Aid for the dude’s head and continue on my way.

The music:
This band are known largely as the place where modern-day guitar hero Gus G. got his start. They’ve been prolifically releasing albums since 2001, and this one is their seventh. I haven’t paid much attention to these guys over the years, and while I’m still not gonna be running out to complete my M.P. collection, Mystic Prophecy definitely have some worth. In general they resemble a heavier, darker Nocturnal Rites, with all the modernisms N.R. started introducing with the introduction of vocalist Jonny Lindqvist and the Afterlife album (in no way, shape or form am I saying they’re that good. Nobody will ever beat Afterlife at its own game. Every metal fan should own it). Should Nocturnal Rites ever part with Jonny, they can get this Roberto Dimitri Liapakis guy, because the two are very similar. Gruff yet with excellent melodic ability, delivered with a ton of passion and power. It’s not hard to fall under the spell of his melodies on something like “Eyes of the Devil.” He works some similarly mighty magic throughout, always coming across as a Jonny Lindqvist/Mats Leven sort of singer with a penchant for catchy, AOR-esque melodies. He’s the clear highlight here. While you’re guaranteed some galvanizing double-bass driven rhythms and colorful lead work with some nasty tones, their chug-chug-chug style of riffery is far too bland and gets old really quick. You can look at it as a platform for Liapakis to perform upon, but riffs in power metal bands shouldn’t be relegated to background scenery. It all gets a bit repetitive by fourth song “Damned Tonight,” but the vocalist keeps you listening intently all the way through final song “Back With the Storm,” although they almost lost me with penultimate track “Miracle Man” (yes, the Ozzy Osbourne song). Even though Mystic Prophecy is German, they’re an honorary Swedish band as far as I’m concerned, considering all the references to great Swedish melodic heavy metal bands in their music. On a final note: the band’s album-titling pattern is getting stale. Lots of cutely “dark” invented compound words: Fireangel, Ravenlord, Killhammer. My money’s on Thundertoaster for the next one.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL389

ILSA, The Maggots are Hungry (2009, Odium Generis Humani)

The skull:
This amazing skull combines three of my favorite things: flowing tresses, berets, and potato masher grenades. The single, glaring eye is just icing on the cake. For some reason, this skull immediately made me think of Chainsaw Caine, the idiot frontman of the godawful Slave Raider, but Caine wore his eyepatch over his right eye, so this clearly couldn’t be him. Also, Caine wishes he had hair this lovely. Really, I don’t know how or why I made the connection, but it came to me instantly and powerfully, and in this line of work, one comes to trust those instincts. Call them the providence of The Skull.

The music:
I’m not a huge fan of crust (I like Amebix and Hellbastard and not much else) but Ilsa are pretty good as crust goes. While a lot of crust leans punk, this is definitely metal, and in their slower moments Ilsa could even make for a convincing doom metal band. The raspy, grindy vocals suck pretty bad, and it’s not like any of these riffs are gonna knock your socks off, but The Maggots are Hungry is slathered in grimy atmosphere and a palpable indignation, which is really the most you can ask of crust. The production is analog and murky, but it’s not anarcho-squatter lo-fi, as a lot of this sort of thing tends to be, and clocking in at under a half-hour, this at least doesn’t leave you wanting less.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL388

INDESTRUCTIBLE NOISE COMMAND, Heaven Sent…Hellbound  (2011, Rising)

The skull:
There’s something hilariously tacky here, and it’s not the fanged and helmeted skull. It’s not the generic Photoshoppery, and it’s not the fact we’re getting yet another blah-brown album cover (enough already!). It’s those little lightning streaks coming out of the bullhorns, bullhorns that are apparently commanding us with indestructible noise. Thank god for those little lightning bolts or we would have never been able to comprehend the high concept here. They tossed in an upside down star and a tattered flag too. You look at this cover and pretty much know the music’s going to stink. You’d think after a 22-year absence they’d have something more to say instead of rolling out all the usual overdone metal cliches, but then look at what band we’re dealing with here…

The music:
Was never a big fan of these guys back in the day. Their third-rate thrash couldn’t really compete with the many better bands doing pretty much the same thing. They played in a Testament/Metallica sort of vein: upbeat and tight, aggressive but controlled, ripped jeans, white high tops…you know the story. They disappeared without much fanfare after 1988’s The Visitor and reformed in 2010, also without much fanfare. They blessed us with this clumsily-titled full-length album a year later, and it’s horrible. Now they sound like Pantera meets Machine Head, and even if you like Pantera and Machine Head, chances are you won’t accept this poor facsimile. They really should have known better and tried to appeal to the Municipal Waste crowd instead. It was extremely difficult to sit through this overly-long album (nearly 60 minutes), especially with that dog barking like Phil Anselmo the whole time. Apparently this band is only destined to follow in the footsteps of their heroes (and far behind), be it Bay Area thrash then or modern aggro toughguy metal now.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL387

SKULL REAPER, No Way Back (2004, demo)

The skull:
It’s not a bad painting, this one. Why a skull would be strapped to a large stone disc thusly is anyone’s guess, and there’s something about the angle of the composition that reminds me of those frilly clown collars rich dudes wore in Renaissance England, but aside from that nonsense, this is a nice enough cover. Of course, plonking the logo where they did was an act of aesthetic violence, and that logo itself looks like some free splatter font the band downloaded from some Russian site with flashing text, so it’s not like these guys are totally innocent of crimes against art, but at least their skull looks more or less anatomically correct and is posed in an original way. That’s more than we normally get around here.

The music:
Skull Reaper recorded two demos but left nary a trace on the internet. By 2004, they should have at least had some shitty Myspace page, but if they did, they deleted it (and NO ONE deletes those things; you’d be surprised how many of the demos I’ve had to review here could only be heard on the ancient, long since abandoned Myspace page of an extinct band.) Metal Archives files the band under “Death N Roll” so I’m more than a little happy to not have to endure what is surely an awful quartet of songs. One of these days, I’ll make a sidebar to list all the unheard BDS entries, so that helpful and sadistic readers can send music to us Friars, but for now, I’m going to luxuriate in yet another evening unsullied by shitty metal.
— Friar Johnsen