Category Archives: Skull

Skull of the day

SKULL276

Posted on by
Reply

WARCALL, Demonarchy  (2009, Panoptic)

The skull:
Swamped in a surfeit of yellow/brown, we’re already off to a bad start. Why are dirty yellows and browns such a popular choice amongst amateur metal album cover artists everywhere? A lotta people looking for jobs at Nuclear Blast, apparently. So, what’s going on here? Apparently this is Warcall’s vision of a “demonarchy,” but with all due respect to the power of the skull, you really gotta do something more than plop a skull down into the scene to spark a “demonarchy.” I think so anyway…I’ll know for sure once I nail down exactly what a demonarchy is. A planet ruled by one omnipotent demon, or a demon that endorses anarchy? We see United Nations-like symbology being taken over by this skull, who is apparently the demon, and he sits atop what look like unwieldy and incredibly thick-handled knives, or shovels. I’m gonna call them garden shovels. Goddamn it, I’m confused. I give up. Warcall & Skulldemon, 1, Friar Wagner, 0

The music:
Great. More melodic death metal that digs back about as far as In Flames’ Whoracle for inspiration. At least, it seems this is as deep as the well of inspiration runs for this Canadian band, judging by the 10 songs (and one intro) here. Warcall are Canadians who really really want to sound Swedish. They do a pretty good job of achieving their aim too, as it’s well-played and well-recorded, every ingredient in its right place and exemplifying the style perfectly. But (and holy shit, stop me yet again if I sound like a broken record) it’s absolutely derivative and generic beyond imagining. Nothing sticks, nothing interesting, nothing memorable. Remember the “About” section of this blog, how I note that Big Dumb Skulls’ mission is, in part, to investigate the correlation between the totally unoriginal idea of having a skull on your album cover and the music inside? Here you have it. Investigation complete. Warcall have made any additional investigations pointless. We now know for sure. Thanks guys.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL275

Posted on by
Reply

RANGER, Combat Metal (2012, demo)

The skull:
Stippling is an underused technique for sure on heavy metal demos, but Ranger found some dude willing to dot the shit out of a skull for them. He’s a big-headed sort of guy, kind of a cross between that Destruction skull and Kreator’s Violent Mind (well, his skull at least). His enormous dome almost makes him look like a hydrocephalic baby vampire skull. Maybe that’s why he only has teeth on the top – he’s just teething. Too young to menace, not too old to be cute. Aw, wookit the widdle skull, with the evil wed eyes…. Goochie goochie goo!

The music:
This cassette-only demo came out late last year, and you know that any band stupid enough to release anything on cassette is also not going to be forging new ground with their music. I guess the NWOBHM and Bay Area Thrash have both been adequately rehashed, and now it’s time to redo speed metal. Whoopee. Living Death, Exciter, Razor, early Deathrow and Angel Dust, you know the drill. Ranger’s singer is of the screamy, not barky variety, and armed with that information, assuming you’ve ever heard a speed metal band before, you can pretty much imagine what you’re going to get here. I have a sort of nostalgic fondness for this sort of thing (I own both Mandator albums, for fuck’s sake) but I don’t exactly love the stuff, and I’m not especially interested in hearing more of it, but honestly, Ranger do as fine a job of recycling speed metal as, say, Havok does recycling Bay Area thrash. If you don’t know your metal history, you love rethrash, and you wish the vocalist kinda-sorta sang, then Ranger are a perfectly fine band. Break out your walkman and your denim vest, hit play and tell your parents they can shove it.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL274

Posted on by
Reply

VALOTON, Beastificate  (2010, Hammer Of Hate)

The skull:
With an, uh, octagram behind him, this skull looks kingly/goofy in all that accoutrement:
majestic and humongous ram horns, stuff that looks like black broom hairs growing off his
chin, and a vague spongy mass atop his head that’s either a hairnet or brains. He’s really
beastificating here, that’s for sure. There are enough metal skull covers featuring ram
horns fused to a human skull that the Council have considered opening up an entirely
separate branch of Big Dumb Skulls to handle all of them. This one would rank right at the
top.

The music:
I looked at the cover, the genre, the label, and looked at Finland as the country
of origin and figured it all pointed to Horna worship, ie. black metal in its strictest,
most violent, and purest form. But no — Valoton operate in an area that’s much more
technical, melodic and well-recorded, reminding of that early ’90s Swedish melodic death
metal sound mixed with the kind of modernized approach Gorgoroth took on the Incipit Satan album, but less varied and totally Nuclear Blast-y, if you get what I mean. Far more refined than their Finnish black metal peers, don’t be surprised if someday you see Valoton rubbing shoulders at the summer festivals next to bands like Hypocrisy and Behemoth. As for individual highlights throughout the album, there aren’t any — Valoton are good at what they do, but practically every song sounds the same. This interchangability is accepted these days by a lot of people, so hey, good luck to ’em. I’m at least glad I didn’t have to sit here and listen to the umpteenth Horna wanna-be.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL273

Posted on by
Reply

SPARTAN WARRIOR, Spartan Warrior (1984, Roadrunner)

The skull:
I must say, this is a brilliant cover, and I mean that sincerely. For starters, it’s a lovely painting, executed with a skill miles beyond what 99.999999% of metal cover artists can offer. But beyond that, it’s a fantastic composition, anchored (for me) by the bird sitting on the skull. He’s pictured with his head under his wing, probably cleaning himself. It’s something birds do all the time. But, it’s something birds on album covers never do. You ask for a bird, and you’re probably going to get a majestic raven, wings spread, beak agape. Here you get some ordinary little songbird, cleaning himself atop a bleached skull. Life moves on. The skull, human life, are nothing to these birds, nothing to the world. Of no more consequence, at least, than a rock or a stump or any other convenient spot to perch and groom one’s self. All those black metal bands with their winter desolation and washed-out monochrome skulls haven’t been able to summon even a jot of the nihilism of these two little birds and their incidental meeting place.

The music:
By 1984, NWOBHM was losing its focus and some of its thrill. There were still plenty of good bands working the form, but bands in the US had taken the first few years of new wave and run with it, leaving the British latecomers to look a little stodgy and behind-the-times. Basically, as the years went on, it was harder to sound “new” and “metal” while at the same time sounding enough like the better bands of 1979 to warrant a space under the NWOBHM umbrella. One of the greatest paradoxes of NWOBHM is that it basically produced only one band that sounded like Iron Maiden: Iron Maiden. The biggest and most important band from that scene evolved so rapidly that any group that could that quickly incorporate Maiden’s innovations would no longer sound like a NWOBHM band! Now, this is of course only an issue to us in retrospect, as a matter of nomenclature, but at the same time, I think it’s no coincidence that while NWOBHM as we know it ran well into the mid 80s, success for any band was only cult-level at best. All the heroes of the movement came out of the first year or two, and after that were only weaker imitators who were never as metal as the state of the art for whatever year they came out. Spartan Warrior (to get to the nominal subject of this review) are a great example of the almost instant obsolescence of a would-be new wave band in 1984. They’re a fine band, and certainly more rehearsed and polished than a lot of the groups that came before them, but even for 1984 this music feels kind of old fashioned, as if there were still no more inputs to heavy metal than Deep Purple and Judas Priest. The riffs are too slow, the lyrics too corny. There just wasn’t room enough for two Saxons, I guess. That’s all to say that it’s clear why Spartan Warrior never broke it big, but of course they can be (or still are) pretty fun to listen to, even as they illustrate in the starkest terms how the NWOBHM, after an initial burst of creative and commercial success, produced primarily dead ends, and instantly at that.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL272

Posted on by
Reply

BALMOG / DEATHROW – Odium Mors / Neverending Rain split (2009, Bloody Productions)

The skull:
Gracing the Balmog side of this split, here we have yet another skull doing service for Satan, particularly his servants Balmog. The skull sits humbly, looking bored, probably thinking “geez, how did I become yet another skull encircled in occult symbols and some Latin title. Why can’t I get a gig like that Axe Minister skull, or at least a steady paying gig with Black Label Society?” Nah, there isn’t much of note here, especially that we haven’t seen before, but he sports a nice set of upper choppers, more than making up for the complete lack of lower ones.

The music:
Balmog’s “Odium Mors” track is quite good. These Spaniards have studied their mid-paced Gorgoroth, as this song has that Infernus-style guitar scraping, something both caustic and sweeping in its diabolical tone. Vocals are varied and on the lower side of the scale, avoiding the patented screech most black metal vocalists skate by on. (There are moments that reference Attila Csihar’s work on Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, although no one has ever successfully captured that particular vibe). The recording is clear, powerful and crisp, bringing plenty of darkness despite its pro-recorded slickness. It’s not an anemic Dimmu Borgir-slick or anything, but it is remarkable that an obscure black metal band are recording this kind of material with this sort of production aesthetic. Derivative of Gorgoroth and Mayhem, then, but pretty good regardless. Reviewing the Deathrow side of the split isn’t mandatory, sayeth the Council, since their artwork is sans skull. And I prefer to ignore them, since they ignored the fact that there were two bands of note bearing the Deathrow (or Death Row) name prior to their existence, and 1) if they knew that but chose to overlook it, they’re idiots, and 2) If they don’t know who the German Deathrow is, they’re idiots.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL271

Posted on by
Reply

SALACIOUS GODS, Piene (2005, Folter)

The skull:
Though this is obviously a piece of bargain basement Photoshoppery, I prefer to imagine that the plastic flatness of this cover was achieved by different, analog means. I’m speaking, of course, of Colorforms®. Imagine the possibilities! A few pieces from the “Skulls, Teeth, and Bones” starter kit, then a few maces from the “Medieval Weaponry” set, a pair of horns from “Goats, Sheep, and Cows,” and finally, something from a pack of “Spiky Crowns and Pointy Accoutrements”. Obviously the people who make albums like this have the minds of children, so it would make sense to cater to their edutainment needs. Frankly, I can’t imagine why the University Games Corporation hasn’t yet come out with an entire line of Big Dumb Skull® Colorforms®. I’m sure The Council would consider a license for so esteemed a property.

The music:
Speedy mid-fi black metal, reminding me of early Immortal, or Gorgoroth minus the madness. Competent, but so utterly derivative that I can’t be bothered to even try to enjoy it. I don’t as a rule seek out black metal, and yet I’ve heard dozens, maybe a hundred bands exactly like this. Salacious Gods even wear corpse paint. Well, at least they wore it in 2005 when Piene (which means “full” in Italian) came out, but way back then, corpse paint was only 75% as gauche as it is today, and I if it frightened their mothers and their old school teachers and the other straights, well, I guess it was worth it.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL270

Posted on by
Reply

HIGHGATE, Black Frost Fallout  (2009, They Used Dark Forces)

The skull:
Can’t help but think of Carcass’ Tools of the Trade EP when looking at this cover. But this image is starker: a skull in the middle surrounded by, uh, 2 x 4s, or wood-chopping wedges, or some sort of spike, or who knows what. It’s like a bleak industrial rendition of a sunflower. Like a sunflower planted in ash that only grows at night and is watered with piss. And since “black frost fallout” sounds like something related to “nuclear winter,” I’m starting to get the picture: these guys probably don’t sound like Edguy.

The music:
Highgate definitely does not sound like Edguy. Theirs is a labored, dry, harrowing brand of sludge (with black metal elements) that isn’t at all appealing, but probably isn’t meant to be. It’s ugly music for when you want exactly that, and it’s no fun at all. It’s also rather dull; making it through even the first five minutes of this compilation was a chore, but a friar does what a friar’s gotta do. Even when they bust out into black metal-esque speed (and vocals), as on “The Wolf,” it’s like Eyehategod playing Ildjarn songs. Not good. They really need to do something about this guitar sound too. It’s so tight, compact and dry, they lose all heaviness, or unearthliness, or any other sort of vibe they might have been going for.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL269

Posted on by
Reply

ONSLAUGHT, What Lies Ahead (1983, demo)

The skull:
Yet another cracked up skull on a demo. Yawn. There’s a certain desperate look to this guy, though, that I like. A sadness, even. He knows he’s in a bad way, but he lost the ability to reason when his brain leaked out. Wracked with confusion, he’s only just realizing he can’t even scream “FUCK!” without lips. If he knew that what lies ahead is like four more demos of this shit, well, I think he’d completely wig out.

The music:
I’ll admit that I’m not a great fan of the first two Onslaught albums, which are held to be classics by many people. I vastly prefer their third album, the shamelessly Metallica-inspired In Search of Sanity, which also features one of my favorite British metal singers, Steve Grimmett, formerly of Grim Reaper. But, even were I fond of Power from Hell and The Force, I don’t think I’d particularly love this demo. It’s as much punk as it is metal, sounding like a Discharge cover band that also loved Venom. That’s not entirely a bad thing, and I can at least appreciate the energy on display, but the execution is just too raw for my tastes. A lot of the songs on this demo made it to the band’s proper debut, and while they don’t change much, the shift from hardcore to thrash is striking. Going from the demo to the album, the vocals changes from barking to snarling, and the guitarists learned how to properly speed pick for their LP while on the demo they’re just strumming their simple chord progressions. But if you like crusty pseudo-thrash along the lines of Hellbastard, or if you like Power from Hell but not as much as you love Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing then maybe What Lies Ahead is worth a listen.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL268

Posted on by
Reply

AXE MINISTER, Evil Grows  (1989, demo)

The skull:
“Gimme something I can use!” this Friar has screamed many a time over the past 268 skulls, and thankfully Axe Minister delivers upon my request. This is a truly great cover. This skull is totally overwhelmed by evil, and may be turning evil himself, judging by those fangs. That’s not the only thing sprouting on this cover:  the grass he’s embedded in seems to have a wicked thorny vine growing out of it, which ensnares the skull and threatens to return him to the Earth from whence he came. The fact that this struggle is taking place in what looks like a hellish lightning storm shows very clearly that this skull has a hell of a lot on his hands right now. (The fact that he lacks hands is yet another troublesome aspect of the skull’s plight). I’m betting the vine and storm win out.

The music:
Musically this is sorta like Show No Mercy and Tales of Terror played by the earliest lineup of Flotsam and Jetsam. As legendary as such a marriage should produce? Nah. The songs aren’t as strong, but the vibe is there and the musicianship is solid.  Although this came out in 1989, it sounds so 1984 it’s not funny. They could have been on Metal Massacre IV. A few super-fast moments nudge in, as in “The Force of Fire,” showing its true vintage, but most of this would have probably sounded “old” even if you’d heard it right there in 1989. Unfortunately the vocals are pretty bad, sounding like a fat pizza delivery guy shouting his aggro out between illicit bites of crust that he hasn’t totally swallowed yet. With a better vocalist, this could be worthy of the “demo reissue on CD 25 years later” treatment. It was, in fact, reissued with some live tracks on the obscure Chunks Of Meat label, so somebody out there thinks a lot of it. If you have any nostalgia at all for those early Metal Massacre comps and that greasy, clanky early speed/thrash sound, this is definitely worth a listen.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL267

Posted on by
Reply

DAMNED PLAN, Beyond Strength (2010, self released)

The skull:
“What have we got here, detective?” “Well, it would appear the victim, a renowned brain surgeon, was examining an x-ray and trying out his new fog machine when the assailant…” “Hold on, detective. Fog machine?” “Yes, sir. The doctor was evidently also a real Halloween enthusiast. Puts up a big display at his house every year. The kids loved it.” “Gotcha. So, he’s looking at the skull in the fog and then what? “Well, sir, we believe the killer was able to enter the room without the doctor noticing because of the fog. Ironic, really. Anyway, the assailant then hit the doctor in the head with a hammer, killing him instantly. The blood splatter on the x-ray supports this theory.” “Hmm. Good work, detective. Any suspects?” “Not yet, sir, but we’ve pulled some prints from the hammer, and we’ll run them through the system.” “Okay, keep me informed, and detective? Turn off the god damned fog machine.” “Yes, sir. Sorry about that, sir, but I have to admit it created a spooky vibe. The doctor knew what he was doing.”

The music:
You think these guys liked Dimebag Darrell? Jeez. Put some effort into your band name and album title, guys. They don’t sound any more like Pantera (or Damageplan, I guess) than any other groove metal band, but they’re close enough. It’s funny how some of these tribute genres work. You get 1000 bands that all kinda sorta sound like the inspiration, but all sound almost identical to one another. Every now and then with Damned Plan, you get a flash of some other influence, like maybe modern In Flames, and occasionally singer Doyo busts out a high scream that (unfortunately) reminds me of Ripper Owens more than anyone else, but these extra-Abbottian additions to the Damned Plan sound don’t do much to pull the album out of the muck. It’s just another boring aggro slugfest that tries to groove without soul.
— Friar Johnsen