Tag Archives: fire

SKULL248

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CALIBRE 38, Calibre 38  (1988, Heavy Discos)

The skull:
Look at this cover. See how dodgy it is. Now imagine that, 11 years later, it was released on CD with a very similar skull cover, yet even more dodgily rendered! (“Dodgily” is not a real word, but it is in the land of Big Dumb Skulls.) We’re sticklers here at BDS, so let’s examine the original: It would appear this skull has some blood left in it from the long-gone fleshly remains, enough to have sprayed “Calibre” on that white piece of driftwood (or chewing gum stick) above the skull. The gun (apparently a .38 caliber pistol) possesses the magical power of levitation. But what’s pulling the trigger? The lousily-drawn skull has no answers; he’s one of the dumbest and clueless specimens we’ve come across, so no point trying to get answers out of him. At least the “artist” added some fire and lightning. You can’t lose with fire, lightning, guns and blood.

The music:
You wanna talk about “dodgy,” you’ve come to the right place. This 37-minute album features 6 over-long songs that sound very much like the product of excited young heavy metal fans with barely-adequate talent hashing together riffs stolen from their favorite NWOBHM obscurities. The vocals are the worst part of this thing: yelping, ridiculous, impossible to appreciate. This is very much in the strictest NWOBHM tradition, complete with its rawness and naivete, although none of these songs make much sense, their arrangements ranging from haphazard to absolutely confused. (Kind of rare that a metal band from Brazil was playing anything but death/thrash/black metal in 1988.) Opener “Futura Passagem” benefits from being the shortest track here, in that they have less time to go astray. So it’s a good choice as opener. Closer “Tempestade” opens with the storm sounds of “Black Sabbath,” so similar that they might be sampled from the original 1970 recording, I’d have to A/B that to make sure (not that I’m actually going to waste anymore time with this thing than I have to). The opening riff in “Tempestade” sounds like they inverted the famous main riff to “Smoke on the Water.” I’m not saying “Tempestade” is a highlight of Calibre 38, I’m just saying stuff about it because there’s something to say. There are no highlights here. Don’t waste your time.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL217

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SADISTIK EXEKUTION, Fukk II (2004, Osmose)

The skull:
Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! This is a cover that would really rile Beavis up! It’s got fire, guns, some barbed spear thingies and a poorly-spelled curse word, and every fucking tooth is a fang! Crack the dome and throw in a crown of thorns and you’ve got one damned fine Big Dumb Skull.

The music:
Sadistik Exekution are often called “cult,” which is basically code for “just another shitty, grindy deaththrash band.” Mindless speed delivered with maximum slop that caters to people who can tell how much they’ll like an album by the density of bullet belts in the band photo. Fukk II is indeed a sequel to the original, ostensibly classic Fukk and which probably ties up all the loose ends in the story. Like, it finally reveals who fukked Mary, or something. Usually album sequels are just shameless cash-ins made long after a band has lost its mojo, but Fukk II is not merely the spiritual successor of Fukk but the literal successor as well, issued a mere two years later. Maybe like the Keeper of the Seven Keys albums, there was just too much Fukk for Sadistik Exekution to fit on one album, and the label balked at the notion of a double album. Whatever the case, I’d much rather conjecture along these lines than spend more time actually listening to this horrible crap.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL211

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SATHANAS, Ripping Evil  (1988, demo)

The skull:
Yes! This is what we’re talking about! There is nothing left out here, nothing spared. Front and center is a skull whose forehead is branded with an upside down star. He looks fried and possessed by lunacy. That’s a fantastic start. He’s got horns that look like carrots. There are two cloaked figures flanking him (the Sunn dudes?), each holding a large inverted cross, the crosses chained together in satanic matrimony, crossed in an X behind the skull. They seem to be taking this job very seriously. Fire burns above the entire unholy scene. Ripping evil? Ripping evil what? Ripping evil a new asshole, I say! That makes no sense, of course, and neither does this tape cover. But it rules beyond all holy hell.

The music:
The fact that Pennsylvania’s Sathanas have been active since 1988 is something to respect. This is their very first demo, and it’s clearly influenced by Possessed, Mantas,
Hellhammer, Celtic Frost and possibly even Morbid Angel’s early material. They don’t
have the songwriting and/or playing skills and/or charm of those bands, so appeal is limited, but it’s still a document of the ’80s death metal movement, even if it is of minor importance. Ultimately each of these four songs is mediocre, but the crudeness and conviction with which it’s delivered is notable, and that it was released in the ’80s makes it a bit of a cool relic. Nothing more or less.
— Friar Wagner

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

SKULL184

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EGZEKUTHOR, Hateful Subconsciousness  (1990, demo)

The skull:
From top to bottom this artwork is fun. Try and figure out the logo and what their name means (a play on “executor”? Eggs + executive + Thor?) then work down. Is the skull separating itself from the logo, or crashing into it? Either way he’s got menace in his eyes and looks ready to kill his paintball competition. But he appears to be cracking, and the three paintball splats seem to have caused some of this grief. And he’s got to avoid the fire that burns below (there are a LOT of skull covers depicting fire burning below a skull). What this has to do with having a hateful subconscious is hard to tell, but that would be difficult to convey in a drawing, so the artist did the best he could.

The music:
With the muddy, blurry, echoey recording job, the awesomely named Egzekuthor manages to lend some atmosphere to their fairly standard compositions. This five song, 25-minute demo achieves something a bit above the norm in its class, although it’s yet another “in one ear, out the other” sort of effort. The music itself isn’t bad — there are enough tempo shifts and performance skill to chew on — it’s just that their enthusiasm is greater than their songwriting ability. Their core approach attempts to take what the Big Three of German Thrash Metal did in the ’80s and inject a bit more complexity without going fully “tech,” but not enough highlights emerge from the noisy din screaming “replay me!” In fact, there isn’t a single moment on this demo that does that. So…marvel at the cover and their crazy name and enjoy it for what it is: a barely consequential blip on the radar of Polish metal history.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL170

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GODS OF FIRE, Wrath of the Gods  (2004, Black Thirteen)

The skull:
Man, this one whips up one magickal psychedelic visage of a skull! Look into those eyes…weird organic matter, like black lava swirling and cooling, with what looks like elaborately sculpted smoke whirling up the sides, with teeth that are not human and some pretty good looking gums, considering the advanced state of decay this person has gone through by this point. This person with the teeth of a badger. And then, yes, lots of fire burning below, a recurring theme for many a skull album cover. The skull itself almost gets lost in all this madness.

The music:
Gods Of Fire sounds influenced by King Diamond, Sanctuary, Iron Maiden and Manowar. Unfortunately, listening to these eight songs and 53 minutes is a chore. Their hearts are in the right place, but it’s pretty low-rent stuff. Too many ham-fisted stabs at grandiosity (“Promethus Unbound”), some flat-out bad notes (the guitar themes that open “Nectar of the Gods”), and vocals that try for a wide range but are dull and powerless at every turn. Sometimes the musicianship is pretty good, despite weak spots, but there’s this overall void running throughout that makes it feel like parody. The recording is far too dry, which doesn’t help their cause. It’s frustrating to listen to a band reaching for golden heights only to come back with greasy scraps. I cheer for them with part of my heart while my entire brain says, “No…please…no.” On a fun little note, their second album is called Hanukkah Gone Metal. I am not kidding. Here’s a lyric from “No Gelt, No Glory”: “No Gelt No Glory baby / I let it ride on Gimel must walk away a winner now / No Gelt No Glory baby / If you want to play then baby gimme a ‘HEI!'” The first line goes “With the dreidel in my hand I give it a lucky whirl.” It’s sure more interesting than the stock-mythology lyrics running throughout Wrath of the Gods.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL149

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KATAKLYSM, Serenity in Fire (2004, Nuclear Blast)

The skull:
It’s been a while since the last real Photoshop abomination here at Skull HQ, so this truly abysmal effort is almost a welcome reminder of just how fucking dumb a skull can be. Really, it’s hard to imagine how the snake here could look less like it was actually coiled in and around the skull, which is itself glowing, for some reason, and nearly transparent, for some other reason. The (serene?) fire is terrible, and the crosses (also mysteriously transluscent) look like stone and shouldn’t be burning at all. And of course, the background and general palette are best described as “warm shades of brown.” When all these shitty digital collage covers were coming out in the mid aughts, I guarantee every band that used them thought they were so fucking badass, but I thought, “In ten years, these will all look completely ridiculous.” I was totally right.

The music:
There are some albums on the great list of big dumb skulls that completely intimidate me as they heave into view on the spreadsheet. It’s not because the albums are sure to be terrible; terrible albums are the most fun to review. And it’s not because the albums are so good that adequately capturing their excellence in a 200 word review is paralyzingly daunting; that basically never happens with skull albums. It’s because these discs, which are usually released by one of the bigger metal labels, are so middle of the road, so predictable, so completely as-expected that it’s nearly impossible to muster the energy to even listen to them, let along write about them. Serenity in Fire, it won’t surprise you to read, is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Modern Kataklysm (defined as post-Victims of This Fallen World) are not a terrible band by any stretch, but there’s absolutely nothing about them that appeals to me. They sound like pretty much every other legacy death metal band, somewhere in the middle of Morbid Angel, Deicide, and Immolation, with an occasional nod to European melodic death. All these bands have terrible triggered drums and singers trying entirely too hard to sound like evil men. They all abuse the privilege of pinch harmonics and blast for no good reason. But, they all more or less write “songs” in a traditional sense, and for this reason alone I should at least sort of appreciate them, when so many of today’s death metal bands dispense with arrangement altogether in favor of a formless sequence of interchangeable riffs. I don’t, though; I just can’t bring myself to give a shit about Kataklysm and their ilk. They bore me to death, ever and anon. And so, even though I forced myself to listen to this entire fucking album, I just can’t muster the energy to say anything specific about it. It came and it went, leaving nothing in its wake.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL121

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EDEN’S CURSE, Condemned to Burn (2009 Metal Mayhem)

The skull:
For a cover stitched together from a bunch of stock art, this is at least nicely done. Raven, skull, fire, banner, some brickwork in the back. The album is called Condemned to Burn after all, so the flames make sense, and the raven is a traditional omen of death, and maybe that scroll thing is supposed to evoke a written sentence or something. I can’t explain the bricks, but a skull’s gotta float above something I suppose.

The music:
Condemned to Burn appears to be a quickie odds-and-sods compilation thrown together to sell on tour, so there’s no real cohesion here, just your ordinary mix of bonus tracks, acoustic versions, demos, and live cuts. Eden’s Curse are heavy AOR like recent PC69 or pretty much any “metal” band on Frontiers. When they get heavy, it’s all crunch and no riff, and when they go light, it sounds like they’re looking for a radio hit in 1987, but the songs are generally catchy enough. Groaningly, the singer’s stage name is Michael Eden, which somehow makes everything sound worse. He’s got a nice set of pipes, and if he comes off a little girly sometimes, he’s at least always in tune and reasonably emotive. Highlights are the opener, “Prisoner of the Past” and “Eyes of the World,” while the hairy stomp of “Stronger than the Flame” is probably my least favorite tune here. In fact, none of the demo tunes are especially great, and since I assume they’re demos for something, that doesn’t bode especially well for their proper full length albums. That said, “Prisoner of the Past” was a bonus track, so unless they’re the sort of band who leaves their best stuff for their secondary markets (a weird and strangely common phenomenon), they must have some fairly good songs in their catalog somewhere. I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to finding out, but it’s nice to make it through a review with some optimism intact.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL99

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ANCIENT NECROPSY, Ancient Necropsy (2003, Nice to Eat You)

The skull:
Looking like a three-for-a-dollar rubber skull set out in a basket as an impulse buy at the Halloween Adventure store, this skull was clearly not menacing enough on his own, so the cover artist helpfully added some slanty “angry” eyebrows, straight out of an Archie comic. And then, you know, some fire and lightning and shit. What’s even going on here? Is this necropsy so ancient that it predates the earth taking form, happening amidst the fiery tumult of planetary creation? Or is this skull merely out grillin’ in a lightning storm, having used too much lighter fluid again?

The music:
Question: what do you get when you cross Pyaemia with Brodequin, in a Colombian bedroom? Answer: Sweet hell, don’t even make me think about it!
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL86

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EMPATHY, Skulls on Fire  (2007, demo)

The skull:
We love our skulls on fire here at Big Dumb Skulls. We’ll take ’em any way we can get ’em, but there’s just something about skulls on fire. It takes an extremely high temperature to burn bone, but these skulls? They’ll take whatever punishment you dish out. [See prior Skulls 68 and 55 for more examples of flaming skulls.] This one is rendered in a neon-like glow in matching neon color. It’s not exactly threatening looking, and would be a not-very-well-though-out tattoo choice. Apparently the lines in the corners are either lightning, or cracks. Your choice! I choose lightning cracks.

The music:
A lot more intense and threatening than the album cover suggests (I expected something like Saxon here). This obscure UK band have since changed their name to the not-exactly-unique Painkiller, but here we have the original 4-song demo/EP by Empathy. The only song I was able to track down is “Burial,” but I’m going to assume the other three songs are in a similar vein. That vein? Think of the lost Kreator album that might have existed between Pleasure to Kill and Terrible Certainty. The riffs bristle with crisp energy and the vocals are dead-on Mille Petrozza circa 1986. The drumming is probably technically better than Ventor, but I like Ventor. As 1986 is my favorite Kreator/Mille era, I cannot help but give this a thumbs up, even if it does cruise by in a blaze of redundancy. But hey, we’ve all got our soft spots, and one of mine is this era of Kreator, so I’ll listen to anything that sounds like it once.
— Friar Wagner