Extreme Album of the Week (Plus Four)

Extreme Album of the Week #5, Beneath the Remains by Sepultura, (1989, Roadrunner)

I thought I’d be calling this record the poor man’s Reign in Blood, boy am I glad I was wrong.

Perhaps it’s a little unfair of me to look too closely

at Sepultura, a band I happen to have a sort of personal connection to. Lead by brothers Max and Igor Cavalera, the group hails from the mountain city of Belo Horizonte in Brazil, the same place from which my mother emigrated to the united states; as both a Brazilian and a metal head I obviously feel a kinship with Sepultura, particularly on their mid-nineties albums Chaos A.D and Roots, which often deal expressly with issues within a Brazilian national identity. Here’s the rub, though: Beneath the Remains is nowhere near as overtly Brazilian or original as those two seminal discs.

Burns reportedly produced the album for just $8,000 as an excuse to see Brazil. It shows: the sound is fuzzy and low, just perfect for vinyl, but a little murky for MP3 format. The technological touches Burns is known for aren’t present often on the album, but when they show up are perfectly executed.

Beneath the Remains is a disc whose sound fits in snugly with many other late-80’s thrash discs like Death’s Scream Bloody Gore that were inspired by Slayer’s Reign in Blood to become heavier and more brutal than their predecessors. In retrospect this was the first wave of death metal. The sound of those albums, co-incidentally, was pioneered by Scott Burns’ work with Obituary and Morbid Angel. These discs are all pummeling, punishing affairs that don’t sound extremely differentiated from one another, and this album is no different.

After opening with a traditional moody, acoustic section, Beneath The Remains kicks into gear with the title track and does not stop. The album’s sound is lo-fi, almost like a Black Flag record, which suits the songs just fine. Sometimes, like about halfway through “Inner Self” there will be a short passage of guitar psychedelia before delving back into the guitar onslaught (the best of these is the bass outro to “Stronger than Hate”). Cavalera has a distinctive throaty shout uniquely his own that only sounds stronger when accentuated with gang-shout choruses, which gives the whole band a punk aesthetic while the music is clearly more metallic.

The star player in the band on this record is Igor, the drummer, who would later famously incorporate traditional tribal elements into the percussion section. The embryo of that idea is on Beneath the Remains—the drum lines are fast and complex, especially during time signature changes. The fills are colorful and unique, with the toms tuned so they echo ominously, but clearly. One listen to the beginning of “Sarcastic Existence” solidifies him as one of the best speed metal drummers.

Max’s solos, on the other hand, are hit and miss. On his very technical bridges he showcases a flair for the symphonic that many of his contemporaries at the time lack—it’s amazing that with such a cheap production he got his guitar to sound so full of virulent life. Unfortunately, half the time Max seems a bit too entrenched in the Kerry King guitar solo style (read: abuse the trem bar until it can be abused no more), which is cool in moderation, but when overused can kill a song.

Max Cavalera, however, can write one hell of a riff. Having carefully studied the masters of the riff like Metallica and Kreator, Max whips up catchy yet brutal string-storms one after another. This is definitely thrash made by thrash fans for thrash fans, and the love of the genre shows in great riffs like “Mass Hypnosis” and “Slave of Pain.”

Yeah, Beneath the Remains is essentially a typical death-thrash album. It is not original. It is however a great example of the genre, a work of art made by a group that values fluency as much as originality. This is a highly crafted masterpiece that happens to benefit from being recorded on the cheap, and a necessary edition to any thrash or death metal collection.

Max would later leave Sepultura in 1997,at the height of their popularity, to form Soulfly. Recently his brother left as well, and now the two of them are in a joint project called Cavalera Conspiracy.Next week I’m going to follow Scott once more, this time to an album he spent a great deal of time and money on: brutal death pioneers Suffocation’s opus Pierced from Within.

Extreme Album of the Week #4 Demanufactureby Fear Factory, (1995, Roadrunner)

All the previous Albums of the Week have been successes in terms of their acclaim within the metal underground and the legacy they left behind. Demanufacture is a step away from that—it was not only a popular album on its release, but from the get-go is obviously aimed at a more commercial audience. The riffs are huge, crisp, angular, and performed in a groovy fashion. Most of the guitar parts border on oversimplified, but excel in the kind of exacting brutality that modern deathcore bands are trying to emulate. Keep in mind this album was released in Pantera’s heyday, when this style of metal was making bundles of cash with disaffected teenagers. Add Industrial sound effects, keyboard passages, and effect-laden clean vocals to that mix and the result is a fairly mainstream metal disc, despite its inspired guitars. Fear Factory’s sound is a clear influence and precursor to the work of Static-X and Linkin Park, who piloted similar sounds to MTV success.

For what it’s worth I’ll take Fear Factory over Linkin Park any day.

Fear Factory never achieved the same level of notoriety outside metal circles, possibly due to the weaknesses of vocalist Burton C. Bell. He has a perfectly workable throat growl—always intense but never indecipherable—that takes a few pages from Max Cavalera’s style guide. They work best when nearly emulating Motorhead on “New Breed.” His clean singing passages however leave something to be desired. They try to emulate the droning baritone growls of gothic and post-punk artists like Andrew Eldtritch (The Sisters of Mercy) and Ian Curtis (Joy Division), but tend to fall flat. This weakness was clearly known to the band and producer; the vocals are often supersaturated with studio effects that never really address Bell’s limitations. The lone exception to this trend is Fear Factory’s genuinely good (if a bit uninspired) cover of “Dog Day Sunrise” originally by Head of David (another side project of Justin Broadrick).

More impressive, but still suspect, is the precision drumming of Raymond Herrera. All of his parts are clinical, cold, and absolutely ruthless in their employ of rapid double-bass drumming, which suits the music’s Industrial sound quite well. Hererra used both live drums and an electronic kit to cue percussion effects to great effects on tracks like “Body Hammer.” Unfortunately Herrera is not Gene Hoglan (Death, Strapping Young Lad) and cannot use the double bass at breakneck speed without numerous drum triggers. This causes some truly monotonous and tinny drum passages that more often than not end up sounding like a click track. A few more snazzy fills and bouts of odd meter would have granted the otherwise strong instrumental parts some vitality.

The lyrics as well leave a bit to be desired. Wikipedia and various forum threads would have you believe Demanufacture is a concept album, inspired by the movie Terminator of all things, about a lone man’s struggle against a machine government. The thought goes that this lyrical theme comments on the nature of the music itself and vice-versa, making for a more intense listening experience. There’s little support for this claim in the lyrics. The references to technology come secondary to diatribes about self loathing and misanthropy, and the only real references to Terminator are on the track “H-K (Hunter-Killer).” These themes of conflict with technology have been covered more intelligently by Meshuggah over the course of several albums, but it’s interesting to hear the subject taken in a more personal, less intellectual fashion.

Demanufacture is more than anything a product of its time, the gray days of metal in the 1990’s that produced a few genuine masterpieces and a whole lot of rubbish. Fear Factory’s mix of Pantera and Ministry sounds dated now, possibly because Ministry themselves mastered the style a few years ago. But the group’s unflinching devotion to fusing brutality and a melodic sensibility pays off in moments. Demanufacture begs to be loved for its faults, not in spite of them, and never falls completely flat. Fear Factory have spent their career since this album attempting to refine its formula, but none of their subsequent albums have become as well reviewed as this one. Demanufacture is polished and professionally crafted, but flawed; in short a conversation piece.

Ironically enough that polished quality was one of the biggest conflicts making the album. Producer Scott Burns originally mixed the disc, but his mix did not satisfy the band. Colin Richardson ended up producing the final mix of Demanufacture, but Scott Burns also had a successful career as a metal producer. Next week I will look at another work of his, Sepultura’s Beneath the Remains.

Extreme Album of the Week #3 Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious by Carcass, (1991, Earache)

So the last two albums of the week have been debuts, and the previous debut was a grindcore release. When I picked this album I thought it was time to change things up a little bit: Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious is the third album by Carcass. While it’s arguably not as influential as their first two discs or Heartwork it has a reputation of quality. Carcass were never really a band to repeat themselves: each of their albums is distinct in style and sound.

Necroticism is the band’s only “straightforward” death metal album. Some notable features are that it deals almost exclusively with longform death metal (the shortest song is four minutes, most exceed five, the longest is over seven) at a time when death metal was still rooted in short songs for the most part. In the same vein, Necroticism is rife with complex time signature changes and multi-part songs. Combine these factors and the album’s almost-conceptual nature—every song follows the theme of creative ways to dispose of body parts—and the album seems almost progressive if it weren’t so damn brutal. Just a cursory listen to album opener “Inpropagation” offers insight into where modern bands like Between the Buried & Me get ideas for their off-the-cuff time shifting.

The album is uniquely Carcass, with all of the band’s trademarks. Least easily recognized but maybe most important are Carcass’ infamous lyrics, all of which are culled from research into clinical pathology journals and require the presence of a professional coroner, or at least a med school textbook, to understand. All of this wonderful imagery is added to with voice clips of medical professionals describing gruesome murders during the intro of every song. Yes it’s still the same essential slut-maiming that Cannibal Corpse does, but the vocabulary at least gives it an illusion of intelligence, as well as adds another layer of mystique to the music that begs further inquiry and study. All these lyrics are of course handled wonderfully courtesy of Bill Steer’s vomitous growls, and particularly Jeff Walker’s shrieks. This vocal due is capable, creatively used, and an obviously huge influence on modern extreme metal bands.

Another standout feature of the album is its use of solos; the band had recently added second guitarist Michael Ammott to the lineup, allowing Steer to cut loose with a few truly blistering leads (“Incarnated Solvent Abuse”). At times the two of them will unite their sound in a style very reminiscent of early-80’s Iron Maiden, octave harmony and all. People say Heartwork was really the ignition-point for the melodic death metal phase, but I really see a great deal of melody in the lead work. There’s even a near-accoustic passage toward the end of “Pedigree Butchery.” In many ways, with all these touches and a focus on big, meaty riffs, this death metal album feels a lot like the great late-80’s thrash giant records. The intro to “Incarnated Solvent Abuse” is as pit-friendly as Reign in Blood ever was.

But one very important thing separates it from those amazing records: Necroticism gets boring. A lot. The album is literally so stuffed full of riffs and solos that for every slab of molten gold there’s three you could do without. The album’s only eight tracks long, but nearly lasts a whole hour. An editor’s scalpel should most definitely have been added to Carcass’s surgery toolkit. I realize the kind of ambition the band had for even attempting this album was groundbreaking at the time, but people have clearly learned from Carcass and improved upon parts of the design. To be fair, the last three songs on the record are just about perfect, but even the great achievement that is “Inpropagation” could stand to cut some of the fat. None of this discounts the record from being good—as a matter of fact it is very good, but for every step toward brilliance there’s a sloppy moment or two that seem all the worse in comparison to the shining achievements here. For being such a unique album—full of brutal, prog, grind, death, and thrash—it really does feel quite generic for a huge stretch of time.

Still I think every metal musician, particularly any death metal guitarist, should give Necroticism a spin or two. It seems like the kind of record that is far more fun to play along with than listen to. It’s the kind of record that inspires ideas and arrangements, but just like the medical textbooks that obviously went into its creation, can get a bit dry.

Next Week I’m going to follow Carcass’ producer, metal legend Colin Richardson to a later album, this one a breakthrough hit for a band constantly poison on mainstream success that just could never attain it. Next week is Fear Factory’s Demanufacture.

Extreme album of the Week #2 Scum by Napalm Death, (1987, Earache)

This is not, of course, to say that the album is without merit, quite the opposite. As a matter of fact there are some great riffs here, many of them remarkably catchy. The title track in particular is excellent, as are “Human Garbage” and “Siege of Power” (which, at four minutes, is the longest track on the damn thing). Also worth noting, as it has become somewhat nascent in Grindcore as a whole, is the occasional peppering of mood. While most of the tracks are straightforward aggression, the interludes of guitar fuzz and odd time, such as on”Multinational Corporations” and “Divine Death” offer moments of reflection and elbow room.

The sound of the record is wonderfully low-fi and fuzzy as a ZZ-Top beard, which gives everything a warm and organic feel, but at no point do the instruments become unintelligible. Even the sublime guitar squeals and pinched harmonics of “Control” come through loud and clear. The tone, however does tend to hop as instruments and vocalists are swapped out. Personally I found the first half a bit more enjoyable for its memorable riffs, but the second half has the more dexterous drum work (see “Negative Approach”) and on the whole is more chaotic and indicative of Grindcore as I understand it. In particular the Black Metal styled screeches add something, even if they do sound studio augmented.

Also notable are the lyrics and their focus on social issues. A cursory glance at the titles of the songs shows the presence of a mean, possibly anarchist streak. All the better as far as I am concerned, but the issues aren’t really pertinent in any way. Instead they just vaguely echo the “fuck the world” ethos popularized the Sex Pistols, but with a more metal bite.

I feel the album has its definite strengths, and a remarkable commitment to its comically disgusting aesthetic. If this album were a movie, Sam Raimi would have directed it. However, there seems to be a slight case of style over substance going on. As a whole the album has serious character, but individual songs fail to stand out, and often bleed together. Overall I respect the historic quality of Scum, and love a few of the songs, but feel the debut is more influential than it is quality.

Next week I will follow Bill Steer to the band that made him a metal legend: Carcass. Instead of another grindcore disc, or their more hotly debated Heartwork I’m going to look at what many fans consider their ‘lost’ album Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious. The album was notorious not only for its intricate compositions, but also for its concept: an examination of how to remove corpses.

Extreme Album of the Week #1: Streetcleaner(ReIssue) by Godflesh, (1990, Earache Records)

Extreme Album of the week is a feature where I will be giving thoughts and impressions on an extreme music classic that I have not heard at length. I will research these albums heavily as I listen, and attempt to educate as well as reflect on the nature of these albums.

In 1989, a British two-piece band known as Godflesh released a little album called Streetcleaner that would go on to be name-dropped to magazines and websites in the extreme music scene for years to come. Godflesh was made up of Bassist G. Christian Greene, and creative mastermind Justin Broadrick, now known for his work with Jarboe and Jesu. Broadrick had just recently recorded the first side of Napalm Death’s Scum, which had become a classic in its own right. Godflesh had released one self-titled EP prior, and had recorded a follow-up EP called Tiny Tears that was tacked onto the end of the Streetcleaner reissue.

Godflesh, and Streetcleaner specifically would later go on to be quite influential in the then-blossoming Industrial Metal scene, as well as (somewhat dubiously) the late-90’s New Urban Metal boom. This album was once said by genre whipping-boy Fred Durst to be a personal favorite. Don’t be too intimidated, the album has only superficial similarities to anything on top-40 radio, rather Streetcleaner is an exercise in testing the listener’s patience to the core.

The sound of the album actually matches the title quite well, as a whole it is a slow, extremely dissonant piece that has moments of stomp and groove, but isn’t afraid to languish or ferment in its own atonal atmosphere (‘Head Dirt, to name a single track). The drums were all programmed by Broadrick, and are deceptively simple, being both the first and last things audible on the album. Greene’s Bass is incredibly low, but still fairly high in the mix with an almost percussive sound to it, which allows it to anchor almost the entire briefly aforementioned groove. The hypnotic drums provide a much-needed skeleton to the amorphous dissonant guitar, which at times sounds more like an orchestra of cheap power tools than musical instruments, which in this case is a very good thing.

What choruses exist on the album are rare, but the four tracks from Tiny Tears are a bit more accessible, with clearer, more catchy vocals and a more classic guitar sound that at times has traces of Led Zeppelin between common bouts of noisy chaos. In fact, the song ‘Tiny Tears’ even has a pinch-harmonic hook and an uptempo beat. Broadrick’s vocals are not quite guttural, but are more moaned, in keeping with the surprisingly bleak atmosphere of the album. From the hellish cover (a screen-grab from the movie Altered States) to the use of samples (especially in the title track), the album borrows from other sources to create a aesthetic that is simultaneously spacious and claustrophobic. In some ways the album does more to sound sacrilegious than many of the contemporary black, death and thrash metal bands of the time screaming about satan.

Indeed, the album’s dedication to isolating and alienating the listener is almost ‘kvlt’-er than anything by Darkthrone. And yet there is a zen to the chaos in Streetcleaner, which may account for its near-constant praise when few bands actually openly borrow or copy anything from the music itself. The most direct influence of the music, however, can be found in the work of bands like Neurosis: the simple and nihilistic lyrics are chanted repeatedly over undulating music to create what in the end is an almost meditative effect.

But, much like Neurosis, the music here seems to have more aspects that are interesting, rather than entertaining. It’s very easy to lose one’s place in the music, which can be frustrating considering the album’s long length, but perhaps that’s entirely the point. This is an album that invites—nay, demands—that the audience get lost within it, that is its magic and the source of its musical value. After finishing the album I felt as though my head had been dunked underwater for some time. Streetcleaner literally leaves the listener out of breath.

Next week I’ll be following Justin Broadrick and looking at Napalm Death’s debut album Scum, often considered the grandfather of Grindcore, coincidentally the album with the honor of being in the Guiness Book of World records for shortest song.

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I'm looking forward to this feature! if you have any requests, comments, or ideas, feel free to email the author at [email protected]

-Joseph Schafer

Comments

No offense, but maybe you can put all this stuff below the fold, huh?

Posted by: K | February 26, 2009 at 03:46 PM

Done and done.

Sorry, forgot that last part. all further entries will be 1/5th this size, of course.

Posted by: Joseph "Fender" Schafer | February 26, 2009 at 04:05 PM

excellent analysis...I look forward to more!

Posted by: fatty jubbo | February 26, 2009 at 04:22 PM

The solos on Sep albums are played by Andreas Kisser. Max, bless him, doesn't even tune his guitar.

Posted by: Dave K. | February 27, 2009 at 10:24 PM

Saw Godflesh at the Channel (BOS) in 89/90 9(?) - I remember they had to reprogram their drum machine before the show because they had lost all their files. Back when I was ... "angrier".

Posted by: Uncle Ash | February 28, 2009 at 10:24 AM

I remember discovering "Demanufacture" in the used bin of a music store during my first trip to LA. It was the new digipak format-Winter 1995. I was just getting into extreme metal and I thought this was the most sinister sounding CD I had ever heard. Cold and soul less. The friend I was staying with thought I was insane. He liked new wave. I played it every night-real late. It's pretty tame today but at that time, it was awesome.

Posted by: Anthony | March 04, 2009 at 11:37 PM