SKULL196

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PHYNE THANQUZ, Into the Sun / Curse of the Gods 7″  (1982, ERC)

The skull:
Lookit this crazy man, still trying to hold onto his youth by keeping his shaggy black locks even though he’s pretty much dead. Silly hippie. He holds a crucifix and glares evilly into your eyes. A grim visage! An unholy scion of death! A piece of artwork tailor-made for some ridiculously obscure NWOBHM 7″! Another look and it’s more like some kinda Halloween Pez dispenser.

The music:
Next to Squashed Pyrannah, Phyne Thanquz is my favorite NWOBHM band name. And, like the Pyrannah, they are barely metal. Fine Thanks (in human vernacular) are, rather, among the many bands who dragged their ’70s influences/origins into the 1980s and went with heavy metal looking artwork. Their sound is like Max Webster meets early Blue Oyster Cult in a dingy Birmingham pub, with Jon Lord sitting in on organ. It’s a bit dodgy, overall, but you have to admire the energy and spirit found on these two tracks, and  there’s just enough of a whiff of bands like Vardis (the momentum), Satan (the vocals) and Legend (the ’70s aesthetic) that they might as well be rightfully lumped into the NWOBHM movement.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL195

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FANTASMAGORIA, Inconceivable Future (1991, demo)

The skull:
Ah, the radiation symbol. Time was, you could expect at least one of these on damned near every metal release. Cold war nuclear paranoia was good for our music, to be sure! Fantasmagoria didn’t do much with it, though, and this demo cover looks like the result of a bad compromise between one guy who just wanted a skull, and another who just wanted the symbol. “How about we put them both on the cover?” the bassist suggested, playing the peacemaker as always, and while no one really liked the idea, they were at least satisfied that no one else was entirely happy, either. And really, when you put the two together, you get an entirely conceivable future. “Someday, we’re all gonna be skulls. Because of radiation.”

The music:
Surprisingly, I wasn’t able to find even a single song from this demo on the internet. Usually these old death metal curios are easy enough to come by. This band is listed by Daniel Ekeroth in his Swedish Death Metal encyclopedia, where he also notes that most of the Fantasmagoria members also played in Morgana Lefay. He says their early work (meaning, this demo) is “deadly” but goes on to say that they ended up as Pantera clones before breaking up. Sounds about right for BDS!
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL194

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DIVINE EMPIRE, Nostradamus  (2003, Century Media)

The skull:
In the U.S., this was released by Olympic with a different cover, a bunch of skeletal remains, so we applaud Century Media Germany for releasing it over there with the only skeletal remain that matters. The skull sits in the foreground against a backdrop of one very dark night, or perhaps any given day of a nuclear winter — the black could be ash and other pollution permeating that distant collection of ruins. The dried blood in the eye sockets is disturbing. So, just what does this cover have to do with Nostradamus, the seer? Who knows. Maybe it’s his very skull? Or maybe in all his witchy mystic seeing, Nostradamus used a skull to divine the future. Divine…Nostradamus…waitaminute, have I stumbled upon Divine Empire drawing a clever and subtle line from their band name to the prophecies of Nostradamus? Nah, probably not.

The music:
Bread-and-butter, nothing-special death metal right here. It’s what Divine Empire have always specialized in. Might as well be a latter-day Malevolent Creation album for all I can tell. If competently played death metal is something you can’t get enough of, even if it is of the totally flavorless variety delivered here, then go for it.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL193

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VILLAINS/FINGERNAILS, Getting Crazy (2008, Nuclear War Now! Productions)

The skull:
It looks like this skull just stepped off the streets of Brooklyn, he’s so hip, with his garish colors and massive aviators. You can easily imagine Pitchfork readers identifying with him, maybe buying him a PBR. That he’s holding vinyl only seals the deal. That said, for a cover that was probably created in a matter of minutes, it’s pretty striking and, at least by BDS standards, fairly original, if only for its palette.

The music:
I love this kind of split, where each band covers the other. At least, I love it in concept. I don’t know if I’ve heard a good one yet. I don’t know anything about Fingernails, but I’ve seen Villains before, and they’re a pretty gonzo punk/metal kind of thing. They’re the sort of band that makes you wonder if you’re not, yourself, sufficiently intense. Their version of Fingernails’ “Crazy for Blowjobs” is fine, and funny, but also kind of pointless, in the way an awful lot of punk is, 35 years past its creative expiration date. The Fingernails side is even less good, although it’s hard to say if this is their fault, or Villains’ fault for writing a lesser tune. It sounds like they recorded it in their rehearsal space, too. Anyway, this is an ephemeral, for-fans-only release, lasting under 7 minutes total, and while I’ll surely forget the music (actually, I already have), at least the skull is seared into my mind.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL192

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BROCAS HELM, Blood Machine / Skullfucker (1999, self-released)

The skull:
This skull faces to his right and oozes a blood-like gel (the Hasbro Blood Machine?). Quite miraculously, this gel congeals to form the word “Skullfucker” below him. It’s probably supposed to look bad-ass, but really looks more like a skull dripping red cake frosting from his lower jaw. Let’s get him a spot on America’s Got Talent.

The music:
The not-very-prolific Brocas Helm offered this two-song single in 1999, and while some prior recordings held some impressive moments, these two songs don’t number among their strongest material. They’ve got a manic momentum with some weird vocals and prominent bass playing, and the overall performances are excellent, as is the Brocas Helm standard. They certainly have a sound like no other — at least until The Lord Weird Slough Feg came along and co-opted their approach. “Skullfucker” is the better of the two songs, but ultimately these are two forgettable tunes, which is too bad, because this band can do better than this and usually does.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL191

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SUBMISSION, Failure to Perfection (2010, Listenable)

The skull:
Brown and mustard. Not off to a good start. The rayed background is lame, too. The skull, which is shamefully obscured by a very boring logo, is flanked by a couple guns, and then some dog skulls or something? And then there’s a big screw. This is about as random as it gets, but it’s also a pretty good representation of the title, which itself fails to even form a syntactical sentence fragment. What we have here is a total commitment to half-assing it.

The music:
Groovy melodic death metal, kind of like recent Dark Tranquillity, with fairly awful growls and a smattering of reasonably good clean vocals. Submission aren’t doing anything new, but they work this style admirably well, with some really cool guitar riffs to keep things moving. The drums, while proficiently played, offer no surprises, and there are too many core-style breakdowns for my liking, but overall, Submission are alright. I doubt I’ll go out and buy their disc, but at least listening to it for this review wasn’t painful. Anymore, that’s about as good as it gets here at Skull HQ.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL190

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SPEED KILL HATE, Acts Of Insanity (2004, Listenable)

The skull:
Originally released by the band with a non-skull cover, this album was quickly picked up by Listenable and graced with a skull. But hold off on the rejoicing, because this is one stock, boring, lame-ass skull cover. Where have we seen this before? Everywhere! Crossbones, flames, Iron Cross, appropriately dumb skull…all of it revealing that, no, Speed Kill Hate had no decent ideas whatsoever for a cover concept and went with this exercise in generic numbskullery. Acts Of Inanity, more like…

The music:
A band featuring members of Overkill, M.O.D. and Bronx Casket Company isn’t anything that’s gonna get this particular Friar all that psyched. When this debut came out, I avoided it entirely — nine years later I’m finally listening to it as per my duties here at Big Dumb Skulls. It’s exactly how I thought it would sound: grooving, aggressive post-thrash that is only for fans of those late ’90s/early 2000s Overkill albums, the most Pantera-esque Annihilator material, and Pantera themselves. Metal for the gullible and easily entertained. At any rate, it ain’t for me. Neither is that album cover. A failure all around, to these ears and eyes.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL189

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NOX, Blood, Bones and Ritual Death (2010, Listenable)

The skull:
You start with a skull and crossbones, and you think, “This is cool, but it kinda looks like we play pirate metal.” So, okay, add a ritual circle or something. It’s not a pentagram, but it at least sort of suggests magick or some Crowley shit. Maybe add some esoteric symbols, like that thing on all those King Diamond albums. Looks good! But then, you start thinking, “This is pretty plain, just a skull and a circle. Maybe some clouds or something to fill in the background?” Except now your cover is mostly white and grey. That shit ain’t evil. Maybe if the whole thing was red? Bingo! Now that’s a fucking cover you can take to the bank!

The music:
When this EP started playing, I was initially a little excited by the slinky weird riff that opens the disc. But then Nox repeated that single riff for a minute and a half, and called that a track. So, that’s how it’s going to be, Nox? After that momentary illusion of interest, the EP settles into competent Morbid Angel/Nile worship, with hints of black metal thrown in for good measure. Some of the guitar work is genuinely interesting, including the generally excellent leads, and across the board the playing is solid, but an over-reliance on blast beats and the pedestrian growling drag the whole thing down. I think if Nox spent a little more time trying to write the best songs possible, worrying less about sounding and looking evil, they might come up with some properly great work. That said, the band is on hold while the guitarist pursues another project, so there’s no guessing if this is the last we’ll hear from Nox.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL188

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BARSHASKETH, Defying the Bonds of Cosmic Thraldom  (2010, Wolfsvuur Records)

The skull:
Standard issue occult-skull stuff, something we’ve seen a few times already: a plain and lonely skull encricled in a ring of occult writing and symbols. White on black. But look closer and the scrawl is actually the wordy title written in an Arabic kind of script. Their logo? The usual black metal band name font. As black metal-looking as it gets without the use of pentagrams and upside-down crosses.

The music:
I don’t defy the bonds of cosmic thralldom often, but when I do, I listen to Barshasketh. This is some pretty okay stuff, nothing amazing, but it presses enough of the right buttons if you like older, rawer, cavernous, crazy-ass sounding black metal. The playing is generally good and the arrangements fairly ambitious. The guitarist struggles with fluidity in the acoustic guitar section of “Illuminated by Shadow,” but they get flying pretty good when they stick to electric guitar, bass and drums. The final section of “Whisper of Abyssal Winds” is a highlight of this 44-minute presentation. Once I got into Deathspell Omega via Kenose and Si Monumentum…, I worked my way back in hopes that their more straight-forward black metal material was interesting, but it wasn’t. This recording by New Zealand’s Barshasketh is more what I was hoping for in that quest. It’s generally pretty insane, otherworldly-sounding stuff. Of the thousands of bands in this mold, Barshasketh are one of the rare ones putting forth something in the traditional mold that’s actually worth some time. It succeeds because it doesn’t draw from just the classic Norwegian style, or the cult Greek style, or American black metal, it instead fuses a bunch of shades and elements of the genre into its own semi-unique take. Bleakness and darkness intended, bleakness and darkness achieved. These guys are okay by me, although Split Enz remains my favorite New Zealand band by a long shot.
— Friar Wagner

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EARTHRIDE, Something Wicked (2010, Earth Brain)

The skull:
Surrounded by flowers, bugs, and branches, a ghostly skull with enormous eyes blends into the grass. Maybe the skull is the grass. Woah. Think about it, man. I mean, like, really think about it. You know?

The music:
Fuzzed-out bellbottom doom, like Obsessed meets Electric Wizard, but worse. The singing is terrible, and the guitar tone approaches “all-time-worst.” You can practically hear the mustaches, too. Every now and then they land on a chord progression with some genuine mystery, but the execution and sound are so rotten that those few fleeting moments of inspiration are squandered in a haze of Sunn amplification and poorly doubled vocals. If I never hear another album like this, it’ll be too soon, but I bet it’ll happen in less than two weeks anyway.
— Friar Johnsen