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Sokaris' Top 10 Hilariously Awful Metal Bands
24/09/12 || Sokaris
The Esquire Theatre in Cincinnati, Ohio has presented special showings of the cult musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show for years. Every Saturday they would host a midnight screening and devotees would show up in droves, dressed to the nines, ready to quote the film, insert dialogue and do whatever the hell else those people do when they group together and salivate at an overrated film. Recently, however, Rocky Horror was placed in rotation with another movie. Obviously the management at The Esquire expected a similar steady turnout to risk potentially upsetting the reliable crowd that would turn up to watch Tim Curry at his scenery-chewing finest. What movie was this? Tommy Wiseau’s confounding contribution to cinema entitled The Room. If you’re unfamiliar with this movie just go ahead and click that link, I’ll wait here.
Back? Okay, I promise this is going somewhere…
This movie is inarguably bad and falls on its face in its every endeavor. However, its failures somehow manage to collapse in on itself, inverting its ineptitude into some kind of entertainment black hole. This flailing, dying wreckage of film instead becomes an incomprehensibly enjoyable exhibition dedicated to Mr Wiseau’s finely honed craft of fucking up. Why do we find entertainment in such places? The Room should do nothing more than offend and we should flush it like the turd it is. But we don’t. We can’t. I’ll never even begin to understand how fucked up this statement is, but if I were to value a movie solely based on how much its entertained me, than this trainwreck is actually a pretty significant work to me as a film fan.
This happens in music but it’s a little tougher to dig these sorts of spectacular miseries up. There are a million shitty bands. Soulless, mainstream trend-hoppers. Amateurish, naive wannabes. But every once in awhile a diamond-shaped dookie in the rough shows up. A crusty, glittery dropping of the Hilariously Awful. Like a noble historian, I’ve carefully examined these artifacts trying to understand them. I’ve cataloged them, gathered them together and present my findings to you, unfortunate reader.
And because misery loves company I’ve gathered fellow staffers Averatu and Pr0nogo to help me evaluate these beautiful wretches. The following represent ten of the most simultaneously amusing and abominable bands I could scrape from the worst parts of Youtube. They are listed in no particular order, because, let’s face it, no one wins here.
No one fucking wins.
-Sokaris
Sexy time begins now
Band: Damien Storm
Genre: Heavy/King Diamond with Cerebral Palsy Metal
Website: Damien Storm MySpace
Selected Suffering: Raven in the courtyard
I was prompted to look into the issue after hearing Damien Storm, and it looks like the jury is still out, but I feel like this is definitive evidence that inhaling helium really does cause permanent damage to the brain. Damian Storm features a lot of the elements that make King Diamond amazing (falsetto vocals, horror themes and frequent soloing) in the same way that a dump I took features elements of a wonderful dinner from the night before.
Sokaris: I’ll be honest, this might very well be a legitimate joke. I keep thinking “this is too funny to be real… but maybe it’s too funny to be faked…” Damian Storm is like the Tourette’s Guy of metal, except with more abrasive outbursts.
Pr0nogo: I have never had to listen to anything this bad. Ever. I’m going to have to ask K for money if I have to do this ever again. I want to put in earbuds to spare the other people in the household, but I can’t bear listening to this as it is. I’ve stubbed and reviewed some bad shit, but this is just… killing me. There’s not a lot to write about, just as there’s not a lot to listen to. I might as well shit in my hand, smear it all over my face, smear my face all over my keyboard, and press post.
Averatu: This is classic balls in a vice vocals, as performed by red phallus face. This is by far the most coherent and structured project of the bunch.
Is he Quickeninging? “I know… I know jack shit! I am some asshole in a trenchcoat!”
Band: KeyDragon
Genre: Epic/Goth/Renaissance Fair/New Age White Trash Wiccan Metal
Website: www.keydragon.com
Selected Suffering: The dragon calls me (and asks me to stop)
Keydragon has been around since 1998 and have released 11 full length albums thus far. And now I’m kind of sad. Anyway, in that amount of time you’d think ANY band could figure out what the fuck they were doing but you’d be wrong. These guys haven’t even figured out how to use a keyboard stand. Keydragon wishes they were cliche and trite but they can’t even pull off being generic.
Sokaris: Really I have no idea where to start with these guys. The absolute dedication to failure is just staggering. The band pictures are disarmingly goofy, the songs are hilariously amateur in every aspect, their website is like some kind of archived 90s-tastic Angelfire-hosted digital dumpster, the album covers are just abysmal in every way… KeyDragon is a failed sonic abortion and we’re all a bunch of sick fucks for laughing at the pieces that fell out of the scaly dragongina that birthed them.
Pr0nogo: PEOPLE LIKE THIS REALLY EXIST WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA IT’S JUST NOISES THAT’S ALL THEY ARE A BUNCH OF FUCKING NOISES WHO DECIDED THAT THE INVISIBLE DRUMMER SHOULD HIT RANDOM NOTES AND SO SHOULD THE FUCKING VOCALIST SOMEONE KILL ME NOW.
I apologize for not being able to deliver an intelligent piece of criticism.
Averatu: The idea they pitched for this video went
something like this: Let’s stand in the blazing sun in our leather
jackets and look bored for 4 mins and 30 secs, there’s a storm water
drain near my place that looks like a forest if you squint your eyes.
That guy on the keyboard looks especially uncomfortable, as you say, he
doesn’t believe in no dang keyboard stands, he’s also the only one with
any concept of how bad it is. Someone get that chick an appointment with
a vocal coach, or at least someone who will convince her to shut the
fuck up, or to stop throwing the mic around like she’s strangling a
chicken. This is my favourite band of the bunch.
Key Dragon plays ‘The dragon calls me solar’. Averatu plays Demonlord of Ashmouth, sap all your manna, destroy your land and your will to live. Kablam, eat that!! (Nods to my ladylove for that one).
…Ladies
Band: Skull and Bones
Genre: Talk Radio/Green Screen Metal
Website: www.skullandbonesband.com
Selected Suffering: Fake moon landing
“The band was formed in 2005, passed trough a solo time but now it’s a band again.” Copied and pasted from one of the descriptions of the 63 uploads to Skull and Bones’ Youtube channel. What else is there to say?
Sokaris: Lord K gets credit for this. This is the band that prompted a review composed almost entirely of giggling.
Pr0nogo: Taking conspiracies to new heights, this band is pretty sure that Daddy Longlegs are alien creatures and Ron Paul is the best secret president of the United States of Israel. Ugh. The sad thing is that they’re not kidding, and I think that’s true for all of these bands. They’re all so serious about the horrible stuff they make. It’s an eye-opener, really – because if these guys can’t even play in tune, imagine what their personal hygiene is like. Hippies.
Averatu: Why am I reminded of Gary Numan? These guys are perfect for your bar mitzvah along with the kosher clown and your unkle who drank too much whipsky hogging the microphone. As long as they remember to tune their guitars before the gig that is. But hurry, you have to book months in advance, because according to their web-shite, the main man is a bit of a jet setter. At least this one has a melody, pity the whole band plays the same melody, and the vocalist sings the melody, repeatedly, without tuning guitars before hitting record.
Xerox ist krieg
Band: Black Pentecost
Genre: hiccup, errmm, huhh, ahhahahahohwow, ohhhh, agghh, UGH! UGH! EEEEWOO! EEEEHHH! AWWWHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! cough, cough, ehh….
Website: Black Pentecost
Selected Suffering: A random part of the never-ending boredom that is their sole release
My old roommate used to like to live dangerously. He was one of those “grab whatever looked interesting” folks and whenever we’d browse the local metal Mecca that was Phil’s Music, he wasn’t shy about buying blind. Occasionally it paid off; it’s actually how I discovered Mirrorthrone and got more into Angel Dust. And on a very special occasion he ended up with this. He popped the CD in and the sound that flowed through the speakers was basically nothing but subtle noises, random percussive parts and one-take grunts and screams. We just kept waiting for this intro to end and the band to start playing. We waited for a fucking hour.
Sokaris: “Wait, did the engineer just hit record? Fuck, we never wrote any songs or learned how to play any instruments!”
Pr0nogo: I can’t really say anything that isn’t already said by the genre. It seems like a bad attempt at ambient dark/black metal, or dilated suffering or some bullshit. A really, really bad attempt. Eurgh.
Averatu: This sounds like a bad “Filth” era Swans ripoff. 90’s goth compilations usually had a few tracks resembling this.
The last thing fried roadkill sees.
Band: Complete
Genre: Creepy Uncle Rock
Website: Complete Webshop
Selected Suffering: Beautiful sunrises (evrywhaaahha!)
Complete are easily the most notorious band on this list. Their incompetence appeals to all rock sadists and not just us metalheads that like to laugh at other people’s misfortunes. Somehow a local TV crew was convinced to shoot a multi-angle performance of Complete as well as conduct an interview with the band. There’s a lesson in this, kids. Public access television will do anything to fill airtime.
Sokaris: This is why your mom tries to steer your dad away from hanging out with his old jam buddies back from when he was on so many drugs that they sounded like the next Zeppelin.
Pr0nogo: Jesus. When this guy was a little boy, he lived in a fucking tree. Is he still alive? I really, really want to find out if he’s won his Darwin award yet. Let’s face it, people; Complete doesn’t have singing, or screaming, or even vocals at all. They just have an inbred redneck devout Christian feller, yellin’ at his telly because fewtbawl’s awn an’ his team dun wun da soopah bowell, thanks to that byoo-tee-fell suhnrize.
Averatu: He he, creepy uncle rock. Ooogie loogie band from loogie boogie land. I’m surprised nothing was thrown at the stage, it was allowed to carry on for 4 minutes and 50 seconds. What about the children? Thems some good weed growing under that there porch, and some mighty fine hooch brewing in the bathtub.
The young and hip ’80’s-themed Golden Girls reboot wasn’t as successful as NBC had hoped.
Band: Thrash Queen
Genre: Thrash (minus the first “h”) Metal
Website: Thrash Queen biography
Selected Suffering: Vox of thrash
This one has a bit of a weird backstory. Basically Thrash Queen was a horribly shitty band in the mid 80s that crapped out one album and then had the decency to stop, subsequently packing it in. However their label, Metal Enterprises Records, had other plans for Thrash Queen For some reason it was decided to record another album without the participation of the band and release it under their name. That’s about the most exploitative and bastardly thing a record label could do but no one gives a shit because it’s not exactly like a great legacy was ruined.
Sokaris: It sounds like she keeps saying “box of trash” and that would actually fit this song a lot better.
Pr0nogo: “TRASH! TRASH! VIVA LA BOSS OV TRAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHH” Yeah yeah, go fuck yourself. Screaming randomly is what I do best; I know talentless idiots when I hear them.
Averatu: I’ve got nothing, this is so bad I can’t think of a greater insult than actually producing this crap and expecting people to like it. What deaf retard signed this band?
This is a good idea. A really good idea. We’re drunk.
Band: Overdeth
Genre: Mistaking Monty Python and the Holy Grail For a Historical Documentary Metal
Website: Live Overdeth Events
Selected Suffering: The hymns of King Arthur
Though you’d guess some kind of retro-thrash was at hand with a name like Overdeth, what we are actually given is some dishwater half-assed riffing to vocals that sound like someone doing an offensive impression of a Swedish person.
Sokaris: I think Megakill would be a better band name. Sometimes when Scandinavians take inspiration from something British they make it awesome. Like black metal. This… not so much.
Pr0nogo: “Oh my god.” “I see a man!” “Outside
Camelot…” “Wow!” “Don’t despair!” “No more lies in Camelot!” “Enter
members!” “Did I say woman?”
The production on the instrumentation is too poor for me to pay
attention to them, especially with the bumbling Viking (think that fat
kid from How to Train Your Dragon) monologuing.
Averatu: Is that kermit the frog on vocals, I heard he did metal in the 80’s. I like how the music stops almost completely so we all can respectfully pay full attention to what kermit is saying. Was that, a shrubbery? Of course he’s French, can’t you tell by his ludicrous accent?
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Band: Satanic Corpse
Genre: Blackened Scary Ex-Girlfriend Metal
Website: Satanic Corpse
Selected Suffering: Sanctum
Belita Adair, the sole member of Satanic Corpse explains how the project came to be and everything you need to know about the band: Enjoy!
Sokaris: Satan, nudity and metal. How do you mess that up? On paper this is awesome, but in practice it’s pasty, mentally unstable, grotesquely uneven and grating. Oh and I’m not going to clarify whether “grotesquely uneven” refers to the nudity or the metal part.
Pr0nogo: Nudity, definitely. The metal is just boring. The keyboardist looks like she’d be good at hair-flipping and pretending to be skilled at sex. Other than that, this band has no talent. Next.
Averatu: Thanx man, that possesion video is
actually a great Satanic Yoga routine first thing in the morning before
you get out of bed, some deep irregular breathing, hack some loogies,
great for joint mobility, I know of a few black-metal cows who would
benefit, besides for cutting down on the cheese cake.
What actually happened is they mistook a past-life regression as a
possession, and obviously she was a tortoise that died while stuck on
her back in her previous life.
Its not so much music as a soundtrack for some vain exhibitionist life drama gone wrong.
KISS + Alleyway sex offenders + gymnasts = Killer Fox
Band: Killer Fox
Genre: Super Cyber Samurai Snake Slaying Metal
Website: Killer Fox Live in Action
Selected Suffering: Running Blade
Remember Thrash Queen? Their label scraping together garbage session performances and slapping a dissolved band’s moniker on the front? I don’t care how much you try to forget, I fucken know you do. Anyway, same case here. Metal Enterprises must have been distressed that another one of their old bands wasn’t active anymore so they allowed some drugged-out vagrants looking for a warm place to stay access to instruments and a recording device. Oh but in this case, said band wasn’t active anymore because two of the members died in a tragic car accident. Classy, Metal Enterprises, real classy.
Sokaris: This sounds like the theme song to simultaneously the best and worst 90’s era Saturday morning cartoon. Like something for people that thought Samurai Pizza Cats was just too subtle and cryptic in its execution.
Pr0nogo: My mind after clicking the link: “album called orgasm of death. album art is hilarious. oompa loompas as vocalists. next.” Not much came after that, either. So much for being an orgasm. I’m not really sure if this band is horrid or just… really, really stupid. Both, I guess.
Averatu: WTF. it’s just random crap coming at you. For some reason I’m thinking of people sucking at hitting a target.
Fuhrer the love of god I just can Nazi what’s so great about this band.
Band: Aryan Terrorism
Genre: National Socialist/Angry/Confused/Bored/Inbred Black Metal
Website: Booking Information
Selected Suffering: Crush the lies (huh!)
Let’s be realistic, musically these guys are indeed lame as fuck but they’re probably the closest thing to listenable on this list. The hilarity comes in how serious they take themselves and their regurgitated nonsense, attempting to express their Jewhate with side-splitting Borat style broken English. Go build your white power kingdom in Chernobyl you fucks. The band is somewhat known for having the funniest lyrics in any song, the knee-slapping “Crush the lies”, a song that’s kind enough to give you numerous suggestions for bands to listen to besides Aryan Terrorism. Let’s read a few choice excerpts, shall we?
Dimmu Borgir are fucking clowns, gays, venal bitches.
They all sell their asses for a gram of heroin.
Explode the bomb on their gig?
Clowns of cradle of shit are perverts
trading in their defects,
singing with castrated voices of their teenager’s problems.
This is a pornographic clownade burn them fucking alive?
The mother fucking Kovenant is beyond any hatred.
That homosexual bastard Nagash,
We should cut through his ass with a chainsaw.
What a painted mug?
these are the businessmen from Marduk.
panzer division Marduk?
Huh! Motherfuckers division Marduk!
Ihsahn – bald-headed freak from “mystic” Emperor.
Where were all your mystics sold out?
or has it been exchanged for Israel’s citizenship,
were the money all you want?
After them all goes Nergal from Behemoth with a big fucking penis-horn on his forehead,so…he may put it into his asshole, it’s right place
Sokaris: Ooh, ooh, ooh these look like fun!
They’re like haikus but they’re borderline incoherent and full of
bigotry and… hatred for clowns? Everybody, pick a band and give it a
shot!
I’ll start:
Suffocation, living Jew York City
Sellout for History Channel, money clowns
Move fingers on fast guitar, practice for being gay?
Large black drum man gives insecurities to my pants
Pr0nogo: Cattle Decapitation can’t decapitate me,
For I am Adolph Hitlers favorite grandson!
Having no balls is a disagreement to some
But for Me I accept it as I was once transgendered
Nipples on dogs better than nipples on humans
Especially when humans make Cattle Decap lattes
Finally they don’t even deathcore
Best genre other than us, by far!!!
Averatu: We hate Cannibal Corpse,
Because they glorify the mutilation and torture of woman
In order to make money
Every album has the theme
It’s like they’re pimping corpses
They can suck dead donkey boner
Sokaris: Too many letters at end of name, The Project Hate MCMXCIX
Hoo-ahh! More like Motherfucker Project Runway!
Use drum computer having and girl sing
Two bald men like testicles
Bleed new clownocalypse!
I’d like to thank Averatu and Pr0nogo for experiencing this pain with me. They say that shared trauma brings people together. If that’s the case, we’re all gay for each other now. And with that I’ll leave you. You’re all welcome.
