Tag Archives: hands

SKULL618

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MACTEP (aka MASTER), Talk of the Devil (1992, Moroz)

The skull:
You know how chicks are seen in television shows and countless commercials holding a coffee cup with two hands as if they’re little kids whose dainty hands couldn’t possibly hold the cup by the handle like a proper adult? What is that? Is there a word or phrase for it? Has anyone ever been annoyed by this before? This skull cover reminds me exactly of that. Drink deep from the skull of good and evil, gals. Drink from the eye sockets and nose hole. Drink deep. Heaven or hell…pick your poison. Lesbian devil, cover girl angel — and one hand you’d never want to hold in the movie theater. Drink deep, you babes of metal. And it’s okay if you’re holding it like that … this mug doesn’t come with a handle.

The music:
If The Laws of Scourge-era Sarcofago covered Iron Angel’s Hellish Crossfire with a mealy-mouthed but well-meaning mini-Martin Walkyier-meets-Tom Angelripper wannabe on vocals, it might sound something like Talk of the Devil. Whether or not that’s too derivative or third-tier for you depends on how much originality you demand. This band is Russian (and are still active), so the fact this sounds very “1986” even if it was recorded half a decade later, well, that’s okay…stuff seeped out of Europe much slower in those pre-Internet days. And it’s still not as bad as any given British thrash album circa 1992. There’s not much here that hasn’t been done better by others (like, uh, Sarcofago, Iron Angel, Sabbat and Sodom), but there are some decent moments to grab hold of, such as the seething “Fallen Angel,” and “Live to Die” is easy to like, with its wealth of rifferifically rifftastic riffs. The cover of “Paranoid,” however, could never impress, since 1) the original is fine enough already, 2) it’s been covered to death a la “Smoke in the Water” and 3) Type O Negative’s version is so good that it shut the door on anyone else hoping to cover it. So there.
— Friar Wagner

SKULL547

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TOME, Demo MMXXII (2012, demo)

The skull:
This is a pretty awesome drawing of a (black, as in evil and darkness) magician levitating a skull between his two hands, but it’s even cooler when you see the back of the cassette j-card, whereon is depicted the (presumably) same hands levitating the jaw missing from the skull on the cover, plus THREE TONGUES. It looks like something straight out of the AD&D Player’s Handbook (first edition, of course!) and I couldn’t be more pleased by it. I mean, this sorcerer is clearly even wearing some kind of flouncy robe with tattered cuffs. Save against magic (-3) or the Tome guy is totally gonna levitate your skull, too!

The music:
Maybe it’s just the cover that’s put me in a forgiving mood, but Tome’s sludgy funeral doom sounds pretty damned fine. The vibe here is utterly sinister — this is not doom for the stoner set — and although of course there’s not a lot of originality on display, Tome puts the formula to best use, cooking up a genuinely evil-sounding couple of tunes. If pressed for criticism, I’d have to say that there’s way too much ‘verb on the vocals (which would be better sung than growled, too), but otherwise, this is about as good as it gets for this style, and I’m curious to hear what the band comes up with next.
— Friar Johnsen

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DIO, The Collection  (2003, Spectrum)

The skull:
It hasn’t been an easy road for Kane Roberts since Alice Cooper sent the musclebound guitarist packing. Looking to expand on his solo album work, he took on a mythological musical persona, bearing a hammer-shaped guitar and dubbing himself the God of Thunder. This project performed the kind of goofy heavy metal you’d expect. But that failed before it ever really took off when Thor (the crappy Canadian singer, not the actual god) sent him a cease and desist. He then auditioned for Manowar, and even though DeMaio was impressed with Kane’s physique, they chose a guy whose muscle was more musical than physical (the gangly Karl Logan, he of the awesome bangs). Depressed and desperate for a gig (steroids ain’t cheap), Kane was hired as a hand model. It was embarrassing work. Years flew by and he saw his metal glory days slipping into the past with each gray, desolate day. Then, in 2003, some bullshit record label called Spectrum brought in a skull for Kane to model with. Upon learning that this photo shoot was being used for a greatest hits album by Dio, the guitarist schmoozed around until he got Ronnie himself on the phone. “Hey Ronnie, I really respect your work. I’d love to play guitar with you someday. Do you currently have an opening?” Said Ronnie, “Sorry man, I just hired Craig Goldy back. I reckon he’ll be with me till the day I die.” And that is exactly what happened. Kane Roberts hand models to this day. He lives in Flint, Michigan with his wife, 17 dobermans, and an old snake inherited from Cooper. He still plays guitar, and plays it better than that Goldy twerp.

The music:
I’m not sure who buys these sorts of releases, but I never want to meet these people, whoever they are. If you’re a Dio fan — and you damn well better be — you’ll have all this stuff already. Maybe a couple of live tracks escaped you, but do you really need those that bad? There’s no use dissecting the track listing at any great length. You get all the stuff you’d expect of such a cash-grab, at least from the first three albums. It also offers the “dream duo” from Dream Evil (“Dream Evil” and “I Could Have Been a Dreamer”), and throws a bone to the underrated Lock Up the Wolves as well as Strange Highways by offering one from each. Not quite as redundant and pointless as any given collection of, say, Motorhead songs, but pretty close. (Also, what’s the deal with Sacred Heart? Not a great album.)

— Friar Wagner

SKULL479

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FILTHEATER/ISHIMURA,Rites of Contempt and Disgust (2011, Speed Ritual)

The skull:
This is at least the third time we’ve seen a skull by this artist. He also did SKULL143 and SKULL396, and this one is every bit as good as those. I love the detailed linework that somehow conveys real hopelessness and despair. No mean feat! The pile of handmeat is of course great (especially how the fingers suggest spider legs), but for me, the real clincher to this piece is the half-closed third eye. That eye is so jaded that no depravity is sufficiently titilating anymore, and I daresay that heavy-lidded ennui is perfectly suited to this particular collection of songs.

The music:
Filtheater scored a surprisingly good review from Friar Wagner when they last appeared in the Skullection, but an unconditional love for Nuclear Death is not a prerequisite in aspiring Friars, so while I owned Bride of Insect as a young man, and appreciated it for its shock value (which is still strong, I must admit), I never really liked their music, nor of course their sub-basement production values. And honestly, I don’t recall much about them, so I’m taking it on faith that Filtheater bear some similarity. I guess I can get behind the more angular and weird riffs on display here, but the blasty bits are a sloppy mess and the songs overall don’t seem to have any overarching raison d’etre. Grimy grindcore for horror crusties. And Ishimura is way, way fucking worse. Their drummer, when he blasts, seems to have no control over himself, and as such ends up seemingly out of time with the rest of the band, although maybe that’s by design. And for as shitty as Filtheater’s distorted growls are, the vocals on Ishimura’s half of this split are infinitely shittier. It’s also not clear to me that either band has a bass player, so thin and reedy is the sound on both halves. Friar Wagner can keep this stuff. What I need is some crappy 80s power metal. That’ll sort me out.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL373

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AGMEN, Dethroned (2004, Ravenheart)

The skull:
Now that’s what I’m talking about! No Photoshop, no flames, no fucking bullshit. Just a dude in ridiculous bracers gripping a real live skull. That even kind of looks like a genuine piece of bone, and not some plastic replica. It’s still not a very interesting image, but with this cover you know what you’re gonna get: authenticity and boredom. Huzzah!

The music:
I’m not so well versed on Czech black metal, I’m afraid to say. I’ve heard Root and Masters Hammer (neither of whom are particularly pure as black metal goes) and, well, Agmen doesn’t sound like either. This is semi-melodic but generally fast black metal that sounds like something Swedish from the late 90s. A band that’s still all about the darkness and evil, but who also kinda like Dark Tranquillity or something. Think Mithotyn minus the folky bits. It’s not bad, though! Not super awesome, but pretty decent for this sort of thing. Some good riffs, relatively tight songwriting, and sound that’s much better than I was expecting. About the only obviously lame element is the singing, which is half croak, half rasp, but even the vocals are not a deal breaker. I’m probably not going to buy it, because my melodic black metal needs are pretty much already met, but if I was even a little bit more into the genre, I might bite.
— Friar Johnsen

SKULL285

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GRÄFENSTEIN, Skull Baptism (2010, Black Hate Productions)

The skull:
They went literal here, and found a pair of hands holding a skull, as if to dunk it in a baptismal font or something, and then, I guess, they did a really bad job with the magic wand tool in Photoshop, grabbing a messy blob of the original image and plunking it on a white background. Then they made it all dark and murky and evil. Then they called it a day. Well, they did slap the band’s logo on the skull, but it’s impossible to read, so thanks for nothing, guys.

The music:
Although Gräfenstein are nominally a black metal band, 25% or more of the riffs in their songs are straight up thrash. It’s a weird combination, because for the most part they don’t blend the two styles (except for an occasional black metal barre-chord riff with a thrash beat). Instead, they just alternate between the two distantly-related modes. So while “Monarch of Scorn” starts with a barrage of thrash riffs that go on for close to a minute, it ends in a blur of black metal blasts and expectorative rasping. Both identities of the band are competent, even good, although I prefer the thrashing to the blackening, because that’s my nature. They even throw in a little neoclassical noodling in “Vermin.” All in all, this is a strange album that I can’t say I love outright, but I do find it generally appealing. The playing is sharp, the sound is abrasive but not off-putting, and the intensity is undeniable. If they’re able to better incorporate their disparate elements in the future, I could see myself really digging this band.
— Friar Johnsen