Tag Archives: fangs

SKULL432

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WEREWOLF DIVISION, Nobody Lives Forever  (2013, self-released)

The skull:
There’s this thing out there called the “law of attraction.” You focus on something consistently enough, and it will come. “Like attracts like.” It’s a bit like praying, and I don’t put much stock in it, but I’ve been talking about skulls with fangs a lot lately, and now I have a surfeit of them. Only a few skulls ago, 423 to be exact, I was marveling at the teeth on that guy. But, just like that, Skull432 comes moseying along and outfangs everybody. (“Outfangs” isn’t a word, you say? Is now. FTW.) This cover looks like it would belong to some hipster sludge or black metal band (ie. San Fran black/sludge), but it’s a deathcore band from Russia. What a world.

The music:
Whenever I hear the phrase “nobody lives forever,” I think of the immortal words from Hallows Eve, the ones that follow that titular phrase: “I try not to slip on my sweat.” Great lyric. But Werewolf Division don’t sound a damn thing like Hallows Eve. They’ve probably never even heard of Hallows Eve. No, Werewolf Division are one for young girls into Bring Me the Horizon. These Russians wear Bring Me the Horizon and Veil of Maya shirts too. It could be worse, of course, and they sound totally legit in their chosen musical field, but, to my ears, that’s a terrible choice. I could not get through this whole album, I’ll admit, not because it’s way too heavy or the performances and writing are poor…it’s just a style of music that only reminds me that the minutes are ticking by too quickly and I ain’t got a lot of time on this planet. Life’s too short and all that. I stand accused of skipping most of this album. Anyone upset about that, please take a look at the concept of this blog and get back to me about how I’m shirking my journalistic duties by not breaking down all the nuances of Nobody Lives Forever to provide exhaustive analysis on what I found in seven different passes through the material. I might listen to your gripe, but probably not. I’m in this for the skulls.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL423

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NECROMANTIA, Vampiric Rituals  (1992, demo)

The skull:
Huge eye sockets, huge nasal cavity, big “Call me Cletus” teeth, and some of the most bad-ass looking fangs we’ve yet seen on a skull. Fangs-on-skull usually look goofy or lamely tacked on by an amateur computer “artist,” but these…yeah, I’d run the other way if I saw these white spikes of doom gnashing away, lusting for any part of my flesh. However, this is rendered less threatening by the symbol on the forehead. Designed properly, it may have added to all the evil intent, but really it just looks like a sticker from a Flash Gordon playset slapped onto his forehead. These album covers are great, the ones that take the album title and hope to reflect that title super-literally. Vampire fangs + Ritual-esque symbol on forehead = Vampiric Rituals!

The music:
The one and only “they have two bass players” black metal band from Greece. This is their second release (which actually combines two different recordings, from 1990 and 1991). Unsurprisingly it’s quite the raw ride. When they play fast, as in parts of “The Feast of Ghouls,” it’s absolutely feral despite its clumsiness. Paired with the diseased vocals it paints a bleak, creepy picture. The drumming is hilariously bad throughout, and even those bassists are a bit sketchy, but they certainly sounded more accomplished as quickly as the next year’s debut album. Too many “ooh, aren’t we a spooky lot?” keyboard parts throughout this 39-minute demo, but you have to give them credit for conjuring a vibe here, that vibe particular to the early ’90s Greek scene — strange, morbid, raw, earnest and with a certain charm. The final track, “La Mort,” is especially strange, sounding not unlike some basement recording of a dark Italian prog rock band with drunken Uncle Giorgio having taken over the mic to perform his best/worst Dracula impression. Unsettling and funny at the same time. Whether it’s Rotting Christ, Varathron or Necromantia, their ideas were more ambitious than their skills would allow in their early forms, but they did the best they could, and you have to give them each credit for their ability to craft otherworldly atmospheres. The material on this recording is a bit stiff, a bit cold, a bit low-rent, but that may be what Necromantia were going for, and it’s definitely what a ton of NWN!-worshipping kids in suburbs all over the globe will eat up these days, if packaged properly (ie. deluxe “blood pack” red vinyl with thick 54-page booklet, limited to 100 hand-numbered copies. Preferably.).
— Friar Wagner

SKULL403

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INSIDEAD, Chaos Elecdead  (2011, Massacre)

The skull:
The very definition of “passionless art.” A skull. With fangs. Steely gray. Symmetrical. Flanked by wings, bones and bird skulls. (The Council have ruled that this does not violate the “no skulls” rule, as only human skulls are under consideration for Big Dumb Skulls.) Zero style, zero meaning. It looks a lot like 45 other covers of albums also released on Massacre Records in the last 5 years.

The music:
If there’s one thing I hate more than crappy skull covers like this one, it’s the “name game” so many bands play. For instance, Skinlab album title reVoltingRoom, or The Gathering’s if_then_else. Insidead do this too and prefer that their name be written thusly: InsIDeaD. Apparently this is some sort of cleverness having to do with the id part of the brain. And if there’s something I hate more than the name game, it’s silly metal portmanteaus, such as “Elecdead” in this album title (ie. “elected”) or that already-forgotten Swedish band Construcdead (“constructed”) and their genius album title Violadead (“violated”). There are others, but these are some of the ones that use the word “dead.” And if there’s one thing I hate more than these silly metal portmanteaus it’s crappy modern metal that sounds like a mixture of latter-day Sepultura and any day Pantera with tons of breakdowns and the obligatory “motherfucker!” yelp. The band describes their music as “a mixture of heavy, thrash and death core elements with a modern touch.” No wonder. Just wait till you hear the ballad “Time,” which sounds like Nickelback covering Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” with a heavy Greek accent. The latter they cannot help, but everything else is a voluntary exercise in generic modern metal, and Chaos Elecdead (it hurts just to type it) is possibly the most uninteresting and pointless album I’ve had to listen to during these skull excavations thus far.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL388

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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

SKULL372

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NOCTURNAL BREED, Triumph of the Blasphemer  (2005, Painkiller)

The skull:
Originally released on the Hammerheart label with a non-skull cover, this version is a 10″ on Painkiller. In one of many skull cover motif subsets, here we have the popular skull-mounted-on-upside-down-cross image. This guy has horns, but they’re dwarfed by monstrous incisors that I understand doubled as kebob skewers. The dude was popular at his friends’ backyard barbeques, and is here immortalized on an inverted crucifix made of pork rib bones. Not sure who the blasphemer is, or what he’s triumphant about.

The music:
These kinds of EPs are usually such a scam. One new song, some live songs, and some covers. Nothing you would ever listen to with any regularity. Nocturnal Breed have long been upholding this very dry, direct, no-nonsense death/thrash attack thing, and they’re very good at it, but every single thing I hear by them fails to stick, even if it sounds okay as it breezes by. They pick out a W.A.S.P. song you don’t often see covered (“I’m Alive”) and a Death song you always see covered (“Evil Dead”). Special mention goes to the song title “Screaming for a Leather Bitch.” Yeah! This reissue adds an extra track with a live version of “Maggot Master.” If that’s enough for you to seek out the Painkiller version in addition to your original Hammerheart version, you’re way more diehard than me, pal, and congratulations on being so committed to leather bitches and maggot masters.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL333

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THE KILLING MACHINE, Fellow’s Wait (2005, demo)

The skull:
This looks like some super-generic horror movie poster. Or actually, like some super-generic direct-to-DVD horror movie cover. You can practically see the small serifed font underneath that says something like, “Evil bursts through.” The big skull actually has a little skull nestled into his forehead, like the beginning of a nasty skull fractal, but because the size differential is so great, and because the little guy is clearly of a piece with the big guy, we’ll treat it as an adornment and not a second skull for the purposes of Skullection qualification. But yeah, it looks like the skull is emerging from a satin bedsheet or something, which I guess would be kind of scary. But what the hell does “Fellow’s Wait” mean? Does it, and the image (with the sheets), imply some supernatural sexual menace? As in, “This fellow’s wait for some action has been so long, he’s a skull now, and he’s not gonna wait anymore!” That must be the plot of the movie: this skull flying around the haunted house some nubile young lady has just inherited, making kissy noises and chasing the sisters of the heroine’s sorority, who though this would be an awesome location for their Halloween mixer with the dudes from Kappa Tau. Damn. I need to call my agent. This is gold!

The music:
The Killing Machine began as an Iron Maiden and Judas Priest cover band, and this, their lone demo, bears those influences out. Sadly, they sound more like late 90s Maiden and Priest than I think anyone would prefer, but they’re not a terrible band. Just a little dull. They even have a song called “We Bore,” which is the saddest mission statement I can imagine. There is some life and even some originality in “The Mansion” but mostly, this is metal that fails to excite. The singer is adequate, with a reasonably wide range, but his voice has a weird pinched tone, as if he forgot his allergy medicine. The demo is produced a bit oddly, but there’s something very natural about it that I find appealing. The band is “on hold,” supposedly, but with only this one demo to their name, I think it’s probably safe to say this is the last we’ll hear of The Killing Machine, but if they do reactivate, hopefully the intervening ten years will have imparted the wisdom and taste to take this music in the direction it needs to go.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL311

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NUNSLAUGHTER, SathaSlaughter (2009, Universal Tongue)

The skull:
This poor guy’s eye is falling out, which is really not that surprising because he’s grotesquely deformed and nothing seems to fit together right. But, you’d think the other eye would be the first to go, considering how small it is compared to its socket. And while I know the thing surrounding the skull is probably supposed to be a cowl, it looks an awful lot to me like Jaws from the movie poster, so I imagine this guy thinking, “Aw shit! My eye just fell out! How could this day get any worse?” right before the Great White bites him in half.

The music:
Nunslaughter play time-capsule death metal, sounding perpetually like a Morbid Angel demo from 1987. Rude and crude death metal about how Jesus is a square. They’re the masters of the cult-of-limited-edition, releasing dozens on dozens on dozens of incredibly limited cassettes, 7″s, splits, EPs, live albums, etc. Someone once told me that the main Nunslaughter dude worked at a music repro plant, which is how he could afford to do all that shit. Probably they have more Big Dumb Skull covers, but we don’t have the patience to look for a better one than this, and this one is more than good enough. I don’t know how a person gets hooked on Nunslaughter in the first place, but once it happens, that person is in for a world of frustrating collection. Personally, I find their music to be unimaginative and dull, but for the style, it’s perfectly fine. If you want caveman death metal, they’re as good as anything, I suppose. This EP starts with a bunch of covers (all of them curated for maximum underground cred, of course, and including a version of “Jaws of Satan” by Sathanas, whose demo was, coincidentally, SKULL211) before wrapping up with a few songs they probably recorded seven or eight times elsewhere, like for some Romanian Tour EP limited to 27 cassettes. Somewhere out there is some insane superfan with every one of this band’s intentionally obscure releases, and that person must have the worst taste/judgment ever. I’d kind of like to meet him. How could he not be fascinating, on an anthropological level? And I wonder how long you could pronounce the band like “Nun’s Laughter” before he lost his shit?
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL310

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LEPER, Laz (1992, demo)

The skull:
An angry skull with fangs, beady eyes and a biomechanical mane of horns and spikes and pipes, this skull isn’t much to look at, but he has a serious attitude. He’s probably furious that someone drew an “L” on his forehead while he was passed out. “You assholes! That’s permanent marker! I don’t care how wasted I was, this isn’t fucking funny. I have a big interview with the Voivod tomorrow and if I can’t get this washed off by then, I’m seriously gonna kill you guys. I don’t even LIKE Leper!”

The music:
I haven’t heard Laz. Seemingly no one has. There are no YouTube videos, no mp3s on Russian metal forums, no torrents, nothing. As far as I can tell, there are exactly two references to this demo on the entire internet. One is the entry on Metal Archives, from which we cribbed this fine skull. The second, bizarrely, is an Amazon listing. A single seller lists a sealed copy of Laz (complete with price sticker residue), and although the artwork is different, the tracklist agrees with the one on Metal Archives. On the original full scan of the skull-fronted cover which can be seen on Metal Archives, a note on the second panel of the J-card reads, “For full color sleeve send $1.00 check or money order made payable to Rick Bettencourt. This sleeve must accompany payment.” The color cover shown on Amazon is so singularly uninteresting that anyone who might have entered into that transaction with Mr. Bettencourt surely wound up disappointed and angry, and might perhaps have sent the color cover back, requesting a refund of the dollar and a return of the original, skull-emblazoned insert. Given that this cassette is sealed, though, it’s possible that there existed a pressing which never included the skull cover, deepening the mystery and no doubt enhancing the collectability of the skully original. And now, dear reader, let me attempt to illustrate the insanity that occasionally grips this friar, by saying that I briefly had that $16.45 cassette (plus $3.99 shipping) in my Amazon shopping cart, such is my zeal to bring you the most accurate information possible about even the obscurest Big Dumb Skull. In the end, or at least for the moment, common sense prevailed, and I removed the cassette from my cart. Common sense, that is, and the fear that expedited shipping would be required to make deadline, as we at Skull HQ don’t shuffle skulls once they’re set in their order. Leper’s Laz, in its full-color, skulless, high-bias glory, remains for sale on Amazon, waiting to be bought, the last earthly proof that this “Heavy Metal” band from New Bedford, MA ever existed. Perhaps it is a lost classic, a demo of unrivaled excellence, a release that could have changed the direction of metal forever. Perhaps it is shitty funk thrash. I would love to know, but even I have my limits. Those limits evidently amount to $20.44.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL275

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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

SKULL268

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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