Author Archives: Friar Johnsen

SKULL77

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BRUTISH CREATION, Death Pursues Us (2006, Macabre Mastermind)

The skull:
Big, dumb, and framed by two very terrible fonts. I read an article recently which suggested the overbite that pretty much everyone has (meaning, when you close your mouth all the way, your lower teeth nestle behind your upper teeth in the front) is a relatively recent phenomenon, caused (it is hypothesized) by the use of utensils. This guy here appears to lack this overbite, so perhaps this skull predates the widespread adoption of utensils? If the skull is Death himself, then I guess that would make sense. Death don’t need no fork.

The music:
Bob Egler is Brutish Creation, and Bob Egler is not very good at music. Obviously recorded in Bob’s bedroom, featuring a cheap drum machine and beats no actual drummer could (or would) play, Death Pursues Us is a grim slab of thrashy death metal (or deathy thrash metal: take your pick) that reminds me distantly of early Sepultura, although I can’t say exactly why. It’s certainly not the riffing, or the songwriting, or the vocals (which Bob belts out charmlessly), but I guess maybe the guitar tone sorta reminds me of the Brazilians? Who knows. This demo-level recording is a tough listen, and while Bob’s produced a few more “albums” since this, I have no interest whatsoever in knowing if he got any better.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL75

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NILE, Festivals of Atonement (1995, Anubis Music)

The skull:
Straight outta some book Karl Sanders found at the library, with the yellow cranked to maximum, for some reason. Sure, it’s a nice looking skull, big and dumb, nestled in a cozy niche, but what does it have to do with festivals of atonement? Maybe festivals in ancient Egypt were very different from what I’m imagining.

The music:
This was Nile’s first self-released EP, and as such, they sound even more like Morbid Angel than they did when they became death metal famous. There are some intros with the eastern scales that Karl Sanders later made his stock in trade, but in the main, Morbid Angel + Suffocation more or less sums this up. I dig the dirgey “Wrought”, which features some passably good semi-melodic vocals and a rather ridiculous synth flute solo, and the equally draggy “Extinction” is also pretty cool. The faster numbers don’t interest me as much, but at least Nile at this point in time weren’t obsessed with proving how fast or evil (or whatever) they were, which increasingly became the case with their albums. This is just not my speed when it comes to death metal, but for such an early recording, it’s pretty obvious that this was a band who had their shit together far more than most bands do at that stage. This EP was later reissued with 1997’s Ramses Bringer of War as In the Beginning, and nowadays the band affects (for some reason) to describe their Egyptophile music as “Ithyphallic metal,” which is insanely pretentious (and borderline nonsensical), but if you just read that as “Ichthyphallic metal,” it’s all worth it.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL73

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NIGHTSTALKER, Superfreak (2009, Meteor City)

The skull:
Sepia-toned, a smallish skull in the middle of a some kind of sunburst pattern, set with retro typefaces that scream, “Are you ready to rock… and trip BALLS?” There are all kinds of little embellishments in the margins of the cover that do nothing but muddy the pristine laziness of the design. Who associates skulls with superfreaks, anyway? “Alas, poor Rick James! I knew him, Horatio.” Google “skull album cover” and you’ll be surprised how many are out there, ready to buy, with text like, “BAND LOGO HERE” helpfully set in the mockup. All those covers look basically like this one.

The music:
Stoner rock of the Monster Magnet variety. What’s to add? You can hear it in your head already. Some fuzz bass, some Orange amps, some nasal midrange crooning, some tambourines, some cowbell, some lyrics that include the word “mama”. There’s a stereotype of the stoner who’s just too burned out to know what’s going on around him, or to give a shit. This is the musical expression of that stereotype. “Is this a… what day is this? Is this Nightstalker? Whatever, man.” Yeah.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL71

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ACHERON, Satanic Supremacy (2008, Frozen Darkness Productions)

The skull:
Just the straight-up Totenkopf insignia of the Nazi SS. As if the association wasn’t obvious enough, the initial “S”es in the title are rendered in the sig runes used by the Schutzstaffel as well. You’d be forgiven for thinking Acheron were some kind of racist NS band, but as far as I know, they’re just ridiculous Satanists trying to make some kind of point.

The music:
Acheron is one of those bands that’s just always been around. I’ve been dutifully passing over their albums in used CD bins for my entire life as a heavy metal enthusiast. They’re hardly the worst band out there, but their no-frills, old school death metal just doesn’t so anything for me. When I tracked down some mp3s of this cassette, I initially assumed it was one of their early demos, maybe from the late 80s, before realizing this is, shockingly, a recording from 2008. It’s a cassette tape for fuck’s sake! From 2008. You’d never know it from the sound, or the music, or the lyrics, which are of high school quality, that this was produced so recently. It cannot be said that Acheron don’t stick to their guns, though, as this demo pushes the same mid-tempo Tampa DM sound the band has been working since the beginning (even if they’re doing it from Ohio, now.) All three of these songs were rerecorded for the band’s next (and to date latest) album, so I guess if you want to hear them with a little more polish, you can listen to them on The Final Conflict: Last Days of God. But, I doubt you do.
— 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

SKULL67

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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

SKULL64

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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

SKULL62

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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

SKULL60

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DEVASTATION, Idolatry (reissue) (2008, Forged in Fire)

The skull:
A first in the skullection, a second entry for a single album (q.v. SKULL14). Why they felt the need to change the cover is beyond me, as the original was more or less the best thing about the album. But, at least they’ve stayed committed to the big dumb skull. Replacing the grim and staid original is a rather cartoonish fellow. The blindfold motif is also maintained (the true trademark of Devastation), although obviously here the cloth is torn, or at least poorly tied, exposing that one glaring peeper. The skull is ringed by some kind of occult-looking circle, chiseled with the various icons of many major religions. Idolatry, man. And some lightning, because lightning is cool.

The music:
Friar Wagner adequately spoke to the adequatulence of this album in his post, so I’ll merely add a few words about the three old tracks, freshly recorded by the reactivated band for this reissue. None of these tunes were originally recorded for Idolatry, so I can’t quite say why they chose these to redo, or why they thought this would be a better reintroduction to the band than some new songs. But, they do play their own songs well, again, so I guess they’ve got that going on. One thing that can be said is that Devastation doesn’t sound at all like the million new thrash bands plying their wares today. Its funny to think that even a third rate band from the original thrash wave has about 100x more originality and personality than the legions of fresh-faced mosh enthusiasts following the dubious lead of Municipal Waste and Toxic Holocaust. Vocalist Rodney Dunsmore is still pretty bad, a charmless barker who’s probably too old to be putting on tough-guy airs, but the band does manage a certain groove and swagger. Is that sufficient to justify their return? Probably not, but I guess they’re not hurting anyone. I will reconsider my opinion, however, if they release a new album with another excellent BDS!
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL59

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THE AGONY SCENE, Get Damned (2007, Century Media)

The skull:
This guy is damned alright: damned to a face full of chopsticks and half a mouth full of summer teeth. He deserves it, too, for the crime of ripping off Pushead. Die young and leave a big dumb skull. Really big, and really dumb. The CD came packaged in a slipcase that was all text, except for a cutout that exposed the coffin graffiti on the skull’s forehead. Amusingly, fans of the band seem to think this was some kind of censorship, and not a commercial compromise with the record label, who weren’t exactly thrilled by the notion of a cover without the band name or title. But, you wouldn’t listen to a band like this if you weren’t so sure that people just don’t get you, man.

The music:
Straight up metalcore, which is to say watered-down post-Machine Head pseudothrash with herniated tough guy bellowing, The Agony Scene are more or less exactly as boring as every other metalcore band. Their slower tunes approach deathrock, another godforsaken subgenre of last resort. To their credit, they don’t generally stoop to crooning sensitive lyrics about their sadness in the choruses, preferring to yell at all times about lord knows what. Probably something about how their shift manager is such a dick.
— Friar Johnsen