When drawing goes wrong pt1

You may have seen those worst album cover lists going round on all the other, slightly less cool websites? Well I have been collecting my own bad album artwork for some time now and would like to present my findings in the first of not so often series. Despite a lot of these being anatomically incorrect I believe there is a certain charm present.

Its pretty easy to poke fun at metal art like this. Lets move on.

Bitches Sin showing a complete lack of respect for art history.

What makes this one so bad is the look of puzzlement on the barbarian's face. Or maybe its the sudden realisation of the situation he's in. Or the terrible font choice.

I spent 5 years at art college. The first lesson they ever taught us was that smudging is no substitute for shading. Druid's artist buddy obviously never attended art college.

I always feel bad about ragging on Pantera ( which I often do) but then I think of this cover and the feeling passes.

More recently we have this monstrosity. You would think with the obvious money this band have available for artwork and design they would try and avoid the "Amiga 500 game artwork" vibe the artist seemed to be going for.

I love Vision Of Disorder. But this cover still blows to this day. I have tried to work out what the theme was or how it links with the music. Always drawn a blank.

I sort of like this one. I don't know if its the homeless, crackhead criminal with his tattered shirt or the young lady enjoying the sunset unawares that does it for me.

This album actually contains some pretty sweet, pump up, montage-esque, Miami Vice jams. Sadly I don't know anyone that would want Russ Ballard leaping at them in 3D or even in real life. You didn't even get 3D glasses with it.

I can just imagine the brief for this one "The devil emerging from his cave/lava pit and trying to grab a flying horse." Pretty specific and I am pretty sure that's what they got by the look of this. This is actually my desktop background now.

Obviously there is nothing slightly wimpy about this cover other than the ink started running out as they where finishing the nude dude's torso shading.

All that is missing are the obvious lines on the A4 paper it was drawn on.

I had this written of as some terrible 7th generation nu-metal band going of this cover. Sadly, during this research I found out its a German Avenged Sevenfold covers band. I would like to think they have some concept of why a Werewolf is dressed like one of The Blues Brothers and running along the highway in the rain. But I really doubt that.

What makes this bad is the fact its got the Waking The Cadaver font at the top. Otherwise this would be a pretty sweet image. But the sudden association with terrible gore/slam/death malarky means it is relegated to bad artwork corner

Every one's favourite industrial elf surely knew this was a stinker from the get go. I don't know if this has any relation the the film/TV series of the same name or why he has chosen to show himself floating with a glowing aura. Completely unrelated, I remember hearing a story about Mortiis trying to hail a cab outside his record companies office when this album was out. They wouldn't stop so he was forced to walk the streets in full costume.

TO BE CONTINUED......

Meco - Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk (1977)

We all know that there are plenty of things better than Star Wars and Illcon has made this public knowledge before. I mean, George Lucas has been shitting on his fans for quite some time now, what do you owe him? Nothing. Today's record is something that is also better than Star Wars.

The little dude above is a fella called Meco, Domenico Monardo to be exact. He was a pretty big name during the 1970's as a respected producer and trombonist. Playing on and producing records for Diana Ross, Neil Diamond, Gloria Gaynor and plenty of others. Things changed however, when in 1977 George Lucas released his cash vulture, Star Wars. Meco got pretty excited by this film. Even more excited by the stirring score courtesy of the always awesome John Williams. Meco hatched on the idea of creating a disco version. Of course, it was laughed at and not taken seriously. Who would believe that could work!

Meco believed and wouldn't let up. Luckily the score became a huge hit and the top brass relented, allowing him to see his idea through. Of course he would need a pretty sweet band to achieve this feat. The Sci-Fi Disco Band Meco was born.

Seriously

Despite looking like the outcome of letting Ming The Merciless assemble the Village People, the band managed to survive on the mean streets of New York for about 4 months performing live and providing a much needed visual element to this epic onslaught of disco. And it is an onslaught. The album contains the full 15 minute Star Wars suite encompassing the opening them, Imperial March, the cool flying music bits, all those schmaltzy parts and that stupid band in the bar. It also has robots dancing on the cover.

Meco - Star Wars and other Galactic Funk

Of course, a guy with the balls to disco a George Lucas cash cow must have a pretty sweet logo.

Meco proved the naysayers wrong. Those turkeys at MGM tried it themselves. look at the results...

Desekrator - Metal for Demons (1998)

If you have not heard of Desekrator, then you must! These guys rule! I mean, with an awesome band name like that they are guaranteed to rule, am I not correct?! Desekrator were formed as a side-project in Bergen, Norway in 1996. The group formed mainly for shits-and-giggles apparently, and consisted of none other than Ivar Bjornson and Grutle Kjellson of Enslaved fame, Infernus and Tormentor of Gorgoroth fame, and a few other local Bergen all-star bros. They released a demo and a single but only managed to put out one full length on Hammerheart Records.

So what do they sound like, you ask? I'm not really sure to be honest. This is no fancy metal, not by any means! Ha! I've heard gutter punks off Haight Street in SF produce better tunes than this... OK, well perhaps that is an overstatement. Honestly, they remind me of a black metal version of Cranium in a way, only with a more drunken and less focussed direction, sort of like that one band from that one city... What were they called again??

Hey, there are some similarities! Just sayin'...

Desekrator are listed as "thrash" but they're all over the place really. The closest I can describe them is a combination of Cranium and Gorgoroth, with elements similar to Plaag and Tankard perhaps... Actually, I have no way of describing Desekrator accurately. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I only listen to them when I'm drunk? Hmm...

Anyways, certain tracks are solid and well executed while others are intentionally chaotic if not sloppy (ironically akin to something I vaguely remember recording back when I was 15 years old). With song titles like "Texas Joe", "Take us to the Pub", and "Revenge of the Hellhammer" you can't expect anything more than pure ingenious decadence I suppose.

It's obvious that these guys were doing this for a few laughs. Nothing beyond the seriousness of their more established bands at least. In either case, this is an overlooked album with respect to the Norwegian scene.

It's nice to see some of black metal's elite take a break from their kvlt status and have a little fun. I'm not sure if they had intentions to continue this gig or if this was a one-off thing but if you dig your metal on the less serious-side of things, you're sure to dig this!

The best way to listen to this album is when you find yourself completely hammed and want to piss off your neighbor or roommate. If there was a soundtrack to hell this may very well be it, particularly when your roommate is hammed and cranking it at 2am (try falling asleep to it, it just doesn't work).
Point is, this is a great album to throw on to piss off your lady friend and impress your bros with.

This is metal for drunkards. This is metal for bros.

This is metal for demons.

Buy here and here.

Metallum / Last.FM

Warning - Watching From A Distance (2006)

The new year is traditionally a time for optimism for the year to come, a time for starting anew. Fuck that shit.

Here is some slow, ultra depressing cult doom from England's Warning. Anchored by Solstice and Sore Throat's Rich Walker's cousin Patrick Walker, who plays guitar and sings. They did a couple of demos in the 90s and a full-length in 1999, The Strength to Dream. It's Ok but your better off spending time listening to Watching From a Distance again. They put out Watching From a Distance on Rich's Miskatonic Foundation in 2006. It is their finest hour, and also their swan song.

Tempo change is a foreign concept to these guys. Never getting above a slow crawl, this album could be monotonous if it weren't so good. They have a penchant for Revelation-style arpeggiated chords in addition to the standard doom power chord riffs. Bass: non-existant. Drumming: slow and slower.

Did I mention these guys are sad. They are, or at least Patrick Walker is. He weaves with his Ozzyish voice tales of love lost, regret and plain old loss. And the music reflects it. This album is one blob of negative emotions, real Ghostbusters 2 shit. These guys make Crowbar seem like Blink-182 or some pussy shit like that. Real touchy feely, but still killer, and one of the best post-millenial doom performances.

Warning split in 2009, but it's OK, cuz Walker started 40 Watt Sun, and they sound just like Warning. Except that the drumming on The Inside Room was a little too fast at times. Maybe Christian "Commando" Leitch will slow it the fuck down for the next album. This is doom metal for fucks sake.

 Side note: isn't it strange how many doom dudes were in death metal/grind bands before going doom? Must be growing up, cuz it sure aint selling out. Ex: Patrick Walker, Rich Walker, Lee Dorrian, Jus Oborn, Fernando Opazo of Marchefunebre, My Dying Bride, etc.

Blistering Anal Skin

DALE SCHACKER - SABER RIDER AND THE STAR SHERIFFS OST (1987)

Does the name Dale Schacker mean anything to you? Have you ever heard of such forgotten in time, animation cell wasting fodder as Denver The Last Dinosaur? Twinkle The Dream Being? How about Mr Bogus? If you answered "who the fuck cares" to any of those questions then fair play..
Dale Schacker was a musician and composer for the above mentioned cartoons as well as for the early 80's US version of Voltron. High on the success of Voltron : Defender Of The Universe, the studio, World Events Productions, bought up a Japanese anime titled Star Musketeer Bismarck. After altering key plot points, adding scenes, modifying content and basically dicking around with the format they released it onto TV screens as Saber Rider And The Star Sheriffs in 1987.
Now, I will admit I had no clue whatsoever about this cartoon prior to becoming acquainted with the soundtrack about 3 years ago. In all honesty the actual series is pretty standard when compared to other 80's, space cowboy classics such as Bravestarr and Galaxy Rangers. What makes it, is the awesome soundtrack by Mr Dale Schacker. Awesome because he was granted full creative control to compose an entire score that would give the series its own identity and awesome for sounding like Bal-Sagoth playing Stan Bush songs while home invading Nickelodeon.
Schacker packs the soundtrack with a ton of shredding, uber-processed 80's guitar, dramatic build ups, Morricone-esque motifs featuring harmonica and whip cracks, a slight touch of synthpop melody and various pieces of music that sound like those bits in The A-Team when they are building a tank out of a toaster and a lawn mower. Basically, its a pretty sweet compilation of tons of things most Illcon followers approve of. Need music to soundtrack those crappy chores? Here you go. Need music to soundtrack ignoring your girlfriend? Here you go. Need music to get ripped to? here you go. Saber Rider covers all your needs.

Get it here.

Need further convincing? Then wrap your ears around the awesome....

If your not sold yet then there really is something wrong with you, so included as bonus tracks are the French and Japanese theme tunes, a whole host of metal and rock versions of the main theme, a couple of remixes and a pretty boring interview with Schacker that they could have done without really. 

P.S. The Saber Rider team had a huge robot cowboy thing titled Ramrod ( Bismarck in the original anime). As a kid, I had a catalogue for the inferior-to-Transformers GoBots which I am pretty sure featured a robot called Bismarck that was identical to the Saber Rider version. Can anyone shed any light on the Gobot connection?

Scald - Will of the Gods is Great Power(1996)

A fine example of epic doom of the Bathory school from Russia's premier purveyors of White Tiger: Scald. Slow riffs, with melodic leads and soloz and a ton of keyboards. 

two kilos of your finest белый тигр please

After the Iron Curtain dropped these dudes didn't wast any time: formed in 1993 they cranked out a demo in 1994 and put out Will of the Gods is Great Power (originally Will of Gods is a Great Power) in 96 on MetalAgen. Slow, epic riffs drive onwards like longships towards a monastery, soloz and harmonies fly over it all like the diseased heads of mine enemies and leading it all is the one and only Maxim "Agyl" Adrianov. He displays a wide range of clean vocals, from low croons to high screams. Though the album make heavy use of keyboards, they never take the lead or get ridiculous.

The downside is this album has a terrible production; despite being reissued twice, nobody has really given then their sonic due. Cymbals often overdrive, guitars often sound blown out and Agyl often sounds like his mouth is full, especially on the lower registers. Despite the shoddy production Will of the Gods is Great Power succeeds on musical merit alone. 

Unfortunately Agyl died in 1997 in a train accident, which isn't even that cool way to die, like a fucking tsunami or getting caught in a snowstorm and dying of hypothermia. His bandmates decided not to go on as Scald and formed Tumulus, which in my opinion is an inferior product.

Воля богов великой державы

England Prevails: Solstice "mega" post

I know what you’re thinking, not this Solstice:

Not this Solstice either:

This is about the epic doom metal Solstice from the UK. 

They (in my opinion) are the pinnacle of epic metal, be that doom or otherwise. No one has managed to pull of unironic yet not ridiculous epic metal nearly as good as they have. They are the Conan the Barbarian of metal. They are so epic they make Candlemass Conan the Destroyer. ManOwaR, in this paradigm, are Red Sonja. Sorry bros, but yall just aint got shit on Solstice.

Solstice is the brainchild of ex Sore Throat vocalist Rich Walker, cousin of Patrick Walker (formerly of the excellent Warning and currently the almost exact same sounding 40 Watt Sun). Rich also played in Pagan Altar and Isen Torr, did live vocals for Napalm Death. He also runs The Miskatonic Foundation. Starting off in the punk scene, Rich eventually moved on to doom, paralleling the career arc of Lee Dorian, but with less dancing. The band has at various time included current or former members of: Dragonforce, My Dying Bride, Cradle of Filth, While Heaven Wept, Twisted Tower Dire Mourn and others.

Solstice put out 5 demos between forming in 1990 and 1994. They are mostly slow to mid paced trad doom in the vein of Candlemass, with hints of the epicness that would follow. Some good harmonies, but overall the songwriting is lacking, although many of the songs would reappear on later albums.

Lamentations (1994)

Solstice's debut full length on Candlelight, released in 1994 shows them progressing from their demo days, but still rooted in Candlemass/Bathory territory. Almost every song was previously recorded on one of the demos. They do get up and gallop a few times and "Wintermoon Rapture" has some cool stuff going on. They show a knack for harmonized leads and the songwriting is much improved. Overall this is a very good album but doesn't separate them from the pack.
There is also a song called "Only the Strong." I don't know if they are Thor fans or aficionados of Capoeria. I'm 99.99% sure that they're Thor fans though. Fun Fact: Only the Strong stars Mark Dacascos, better known as The Chairman on Iron Chef America.

Each dawn I die, at dusk we pray

Halycon EP (1996)

This album seems like an odds-n-ends deal: 3 new songs (two of them being a throwaway keyboard piece and a spoken word intro), a song from the demo days and a cover of ManOwaR’s “Gloves of Metal.” Despite being a scrap pile of sorts it’s also a transitional piece: the only new metal song, “To Ride with Tyr” is an upbeat ManOwaR type crusher with a slower doomy part in the middle similar to the early days. The ManOwaR influence is key here. This EP was remastered in 2000 with 3 bonus tracks, 2 songs from Lamentations and a bizarre bonus track.

We die as brothers, and ride with Tyr

New Dark Age (1998)

This is by far Solstice’s finest moment. This is what makes them A Number One in my book. This is the ultimate in epic doom. It starts off strong with galloping monk impalers "The Sleeping Tyrant" and "Cimmerian Codex" and ends with the dungeon funeral dirge of  "New Dark Age II."

Massive riffs pass like torches through church windows. Epic leads soar like arrows into the hearts of their enemies. This album has more of a ManOwaR influence than the earlier works, but fortunately doesn't sound like the "Kings of Metal". Vocals are good, whereas earlier albums and demos had vocalists that sometimes couldn't hold their notes long enough, Morris Ingram is pro at epic doom vocals. Everyone else on the album gets kudos to, especially the guitarists Rich Walker and Hamish Glencross for their excellent leads, harmonies and soloz.
To be honest, this album is not flawless. It is long- the 1 hour 6 minutes runtime (even longer with bonus tracks) stretches my 35 minute brutal death metal attention span to the limit. It also has quite a bit of fat: 6 of the 11 tracks are acoustic/noise/spoken word/not metal which, though they help to  break up the album and serve as a break, putting three of them in a row right in the middle of the album is just poor album pacing and unnescesary. Other than those missteps this album is a masterpiece. If you only download one album from this post, let this be it. If epic doom is your thing, you'll enjoy:

Ice locked the nexus, an empire awaits

Other than two splits and some demos and compilations, that is Solstice's discog. Fortunately the band is active and is writing new material.


BONUS: Isen Torr-Mighty and Superior (2003)

DOES NOSEBLOOD RECORDS CARRY NEOFOLK?

REAL TALK. Is it metal blogger suicide to declare one's love for neofolk in only one's second post? Probably, huh.

INTRO: Last month, I read this Decibel feature on neofolk which got me thinking a little more about the genre. It's always just kind of been accepted (if not necessarily embraced) as part of the metal canon but how did it get there? Was it because a handful of black metal bands went puss in 1996-1997 and picked up acoustics? Is it like when Michael Jordan played baseball for those couple years but he'll always be a basketball player? (no, it's not even remotely like that). Or is it that there is an inherent symbiosis in the DNA of Heavy Metal and that of neofolk? Sure, both dig dark ambiance, medieval music, the occasional bow chugging sesh, and totalitarian semiotics (wolves and shit), but there's got to be more to the relationship between these strange bedfellows than that.

Hypothesis: I call bullshit on the Neofolk-as-metal-genre phenomenon. How can you have a genre simultaneously rooted in and inextricably linked to industrial, classical, Northern-Eastern Europe indigenous folk music, and heavy metal? Aren't these mutually exclusive to a degree? Don't get me wrong, I've got as much of this stuff clogging up my shelves and iPod as the next guy. I'm man enough to admit I've got love for Amber Asylum. But what I don't get is why they crop up in the metal dialogue in the same breath as Agalloch, say. Just cos they got cellos and covered 'Kneel to the Cross'? Can someone enlighten me?

Let's look at the data.

From my analysis, you've got three main food neofolk food groups, none of which sound like they have anything to do with one another or with metal. Maybe there is more to this taxonomy, but writing this blog is a voluntary thing and Revenge is on tonight.

ENCHANTED FOREST NEOFOLK

Here we have Musk Ox, that one album by Ulver, and dozens of other dudes who can completely shred the classical axe. This is my go-to stuff for dinner time or showing my 11-month-old how to whittle a wolf totem. Musk Ox has been garnering attention for a couple of years through endorsements by some heavy hitters, like members of the aforementioned Agalloch. He plays unambiguously beautiful guitar accented by piano, chants, and some atmospherics. Of all the bands in this post, Ulver is perhaps the most varied in that they went from raw black metal, to straight-laced nylon string guitar folk, to Shadows of the Sun, which boasts a theremin, a string quartet, and a cameo by Fennesz of all people. We could spend all day debating how deftly they made these transitions.

I'm going to lump Wardruna and their ilk into the Enchanted Forest neofolk group too. Bands who draw inspiration from traditional folks songs of pagan tribes, vikings, gypsies, that sort of thing. Wardruna is the guy from Gorgoroth playing didgeridoo, chanting, and using all sorts of shit to lead the listener through a musical journey about runes, according to Wikipedia and the record sleeve. I'm feeling it. Everyone knows runes are metal as fvck. Hate Forest had Battlefields which co-opted ostensibly Ukrainian folk traditions (I say ostensibly because I can't begin to imagine what real Ukrainian folk music would sound like) and welded it onto a black metal template. Drudkh did the same thing on Autumn Aurora. These are both pretty boring records in spite of Drudkh's almost unimpeachable discography.

Some 'Enchanted Forest' bands get shoehorned into metal via the 'dark ambient' tag. Amber Asylum, for instance. They (she) sound like a newborn fawn drinking dew from the paw of a benevolent giant. But a newborn fawn with a choice contact list as evidenced by callabos from John Cobbet, Steve Von Till et. al. Sometimes Amber Asylum sounds like Enya only more miserable but that is the risk you run dabbling in neofolk. Once we're in the 'Dark Ambient' farthing, we're treading dangerously goth-y territory. In a few short moves via Dead Can Dance and Fields of the Nephilim we're at My Dying Bride and Anathema. NO ONE WANTS TO BE THERE.

RENN FAIRE NEOFOLK

It seems unfair to only have Empyrium and Hekate in this category since they're both German, but that's just how the data sorts out. Empyrium followed a decidedly Ulverian trajectory by releasing a couple folk-inflected metal records before going all in on elaborate coiffuture and singing in rounds. Neun Welten is another one; basically the same thing as Empyrium without the vocals. They too are German.

Hekate is some of the most ridiculous shit you've ever heard. Seriously, one time I listened to them mowing my lawn in the middle of the hot ass day while half drunk and I just had to sleep off the whole experience. It was too much. It's almost completely unlistenable. I'm not talking about Gnaw Their Tongues or Blue Sabbath Black Cheer unlistenable, this is a completely different dimension of unlistenable. On their latest album (Die Welt something or other), Hekate covers Sol Invictus's 'In my Garden,' basically taking a perfectly lovely, somber folk tune and running it through some kind of Johnny Depp-as-Willy Wonka everlasting gobstopper ring modulator or something. I mean, I'm exaggerating but you get the idea. When Hekate are at their most subdued, they sound like some of that hyper-melodic, panglobal music you hear when you're copping a falafel from the Middle Eastern takeout.

STARBUCKS NEOFOLK

This is your Death in June, your Sol Invictus and what have you. Lots of people say Death in June/Sol Invictus invented neofolk but I'm not buying it. They usually sound like Billy Bragg on ludes after reading a bunch of William Blake. With that awful electro-acoustic guitar tone where the brightness is up too high and you're in a coffee shop and it smells like pachoulli farts and someone is singing about dandelion wine. I'm not complaining that they are in the metal club. It means I can listen to them with a clear conscience. But who decided to let them in?

CONCLUSION: Data inconclusive. This exercise has been a complete waste of my time and yours. It has answered exactly zero of my questions. And so I turn to you, consumers, to guide me. Help me understand. Lest we fall down the 'trve metal vs. untrve' rhetorical wormhole, let's keep the question to 'Who put all this flute in my metal and why am I OK with it?'

To get you started, here is a four pack of my favorite neofolk records. I realize all these are pretty safe picks but they encompass most of what I discussed here for the uninitiated. As a bonus at no extra charge I'm throwing in that Hekate album you just need to hear to believe.

PEEP GAME.

Download SOL INVICTUS - Lex Talionis

Download MUSK OX - Musk Ox

Download WARDRUNA - Runaljod-gap var Ginnunga

Download AMBER ASYLUM - Frozen in Amber

Download HEKATE - Die Welt Der Dunklen Garten