Some bands are so bad they're horrible

Needless to say, things that are so bad they're good are a staple of the Metal Inquisition playbook. That said, sometimes it can be too much of an, uh, bad thing. That's when something is so bad it's horrible:

An ordinarily awful work can be So Bad Its Good, becoming popular and genuinely liked because of its unintentional comedy value. Others are far worse. These don't attract proper fandoms and aren't enjoyed, as such, but draw some attention out of a perverse sense of fascination. Prolonged exposure can cause wooziness and weakening of the grasp on reality.

Here are some our favorite examples of metal that's so bad it's just bad...



Gang Green
If you were a teenager who liked metal in the late 80s or early 90s, it is very likely you spent a lot of time digging through the bargain bin at your local music retailer, hoping to find some $2 tape that had somehow been undiscovered by the masses and, like junk bonds in the late 70s, was undervalued by the market. And if you're like me, you probably saw the same familiar faces again and again: RDP, Dead Brain Cells, and Gang Green's "Older... Budweiser." It is perhaps the epitome of "so bad it's horrible" in that it combines excruciatingly dull, derivative thrash metal riffs with the tiresome, juvenile rebelliousness of punk and tops it off with a generous helping of moronic 80s beer humor that wouldn't even make the cut for a Tankard b-side. Basically it's the crossover equivalent for those singing bass things. It's not charmingly offensive like, say The Mentors. You don't love to hate it like Mordred. It's not so retarded it's awesome, it's just fucking stupid, and when you press "play" on this tape, you will immediately be looking for "stop."

This song is seriously called "Solitary Solitude." Really!

Meliah Rage
Somebody mentioned Meliah Rage in the comments the other day, and what better occasion to bring them up than in a post about bands that are so bad they're horrible? Because Meliah Rage aren't just bad, they're fucking awful, and not in any kind of endearing, fun way like, say Nitro, Def Leppard or Accept. Listening to their records is about as much fun as taking a standardized test, except unlike the GMAT there's no reward for suffering through it. The riffs drag on for what seems like forever. They're never heavy enough to be heavy or melodic enough to melodic. Never fast, never slow, just plodding and dull to the point where you want to stab yourself in the brain with a machete. It's like that feeling of rage, disgust, and irritation you get when you're trying to explain to a woman how to use a piece of electronic equipment: "It's not on. Press the big green button that says 'POWER' on it. No, that's the remote for the DVD player. Here, I'll just do it for you." As many people will point out, Sully from Godsmack played drums in this band for a while. It shouldn't surprise you, though, that I love Godsmack, so I don't hold it against them. You probably will, though.

Annihilator
I wrote quite extensively about Annihilator in my February post entitled "I have disliked Annihilator for 18 years." There is no need for me to repeat it here, but if you are interested in things that I don't like (and who isn't??), give it a read! They still suck, so the post is as relevant today as it ever was.



Uncle Slam
You would think that I would love a band with "slam" in their name, but you couldn't be more wrong. Much like the recent US financial crisis showed that the financial system had run amok and needed oversight, Uncle Slam showed that the thrash metal scene was in dire need of quality control. This band was most generic of generic thrash; they ripped off the rip offs and copied the copycats. The only interesting thing I can say about this band is that there is absolutely nothing remarkable or unique about them relative to the incredible flood of awful thrash bands in the late 80s. Punny name? Check. Chopaholic riffs? Check. Shallow sociopolitical lyrics? Check. I could go on forever- there's even an Ed Repka oil painting on the cover like so, so many other 80s thrash records that are completely indistinguishable from each other. Like Mortal Sin, Beowulf, Agony Column, Hirax, Acrophet, Laaz Rockit and Holy Terror, there is absolutely no reason to ever listen to this band again for the rest of eternity, unless you love misery.



Origin
I will end this post with something a little more controversial. I loved the Origin's self-titled debut when it came out. It was totally fresh and unique, mostly because of the unpredictable, distinctive drumming. I still listen to it pretty often, and it still sounds great to me. So, you can imagine how upset I was when I heard their second album and they decided to change things up a bit and become a bland, reptitive, brutal death metal band that was nearly as dull as Hate Eternal, Nile and Vital Remains. OK, that was a little harsh- Vital Remains have the distinction of being the single least interesting death metal band to ever play a note of music. But you get the point. I think they could save themselves a lot of time by just setting a drum machine to play a blast beat at 250bpm for 35 minutes while someone plays random, tremolo-picked notes at the same time. Scratch that, just have a computer play the guitar part too. It would pretty much sound the same as their actual records but they wouldn't have to go to all the hassle of "writing songs." Because I still love their first album, though, I included a video above of one of their good songs- but don't be fooled! This band is now awful!!

The ultimate turkey: Mordred

Today, in the good ol' US of A, it's Thanksgiving Day. For all of you who live elsewhere and may not know what Thanksgiving is all abut, I'll break it down for you. You are basically forced to go back home to see your family, where incredibly uncomfortable situations will take place due to the fact that you don't really get along with them. You want to get away from them, and go do something else...but your plans are usually stopped short because nearly all commerce is closed, and all your friends are in another city being miserable with their families.It's like christmas, but without the presents. Instead you just eat a whole lot, and often watch what is often refered to as american football.


The food usually consumed during this holiday is turkey, but I should tell you that "turkey" is also slang for a person or thing that is considered a failure, and thus undesirable. Now that we're all on the same page, I will tell you about the ultimate turkey. Mordred.


As soon as I began research for this piece, I realized just how insanely stupid and bizarre Mordred are. Why? Because they are still around, and they have gone from being the only prominent thrash metal/funk act, to being a renaissance festival themed band. I'm not even joking. Look at the photo below. They have managed to start sucking in an entirely different way, and managed to include their attire into their sucking strategy. Apparently they have now taken the name of their band literally, since Mordred is a character from the King Arthur legend. I guess. I'm so confused. If you want to see more, watch a video of them live here, or look at their official site here. Notice anything missing from this current Mordred line-up? Yup, they unloaded their DJ, DJ Pause, like he was dead weight.

Mordred today, after having somehow morphed from horrible pseudo funk, to horrible renaissance-themed metal...or something.

Back to Mordred as we knew them back in the day. Considered revolutionary by no one except themselves, Mordred stretched the bounds of music by managing to suck at two musical styles at the same time, metal AND funk...managing to sell dozens of records. Mordred was one of those exciting mistakes that happened at the Thrash Metal factory. They were an anomaly that should have been corrected, had all six sigma regulations been put into place. They were at best a factory second, a defect, a mutation that should have never seen the light of day, like those babies with eight heads and six eyes that die seconds after they're born. They were horrible at metal, and considered themselves to be a funk band due to occasional slap bass and the fact that they had a black DJ.

This is the cover of Mordred single "Esse Quam Videri", which is Latin for: "We make our DJ pose with malt liquor containers in all photo shoots"

Yes, that's a can of Olde English 800.

Members of the band attempted to seem open minded when it came to issues of race in interviews, I mean...they even wore Bad Brains shirts to prove their point! They also listed Living Colour as one of their favorite bands, so you know they meant business! There is one tourbling aspect about the band though, they always made their DJ pose with a container of Olde English malt liquor in band photos (See above). In doing so, the band single-handedly set back the clock on race relations by 35 years. For those of you outside the US who may not know what malt liquor is, much less Olde English, this is part of their Wikipedia entries:

Like many malt liquors, its relatively high alcohol content and low price make it popular among those on a tight budget wanting to become inebriated quickly. "Pour Some for the Homies" is often spoken during pouring a small amount of the top of a 'forty' on the ground, in recognition of deceased friends or relatives who were close.

As though it weren't bad enough that their DJ and his race were used as a novelty, and perhaps as a way of gaining minimal street cred, in one of their videos, they tastefully made him rap while he was dressed like a pimp. Yes, I get it...it's their amazingly hilarious take on 70's black culture...but god damn, couldn't they let the guy have some dignity? I'm surprised they didn't make him play basketball on film.



Until recently, I believed that Mordred's DJ was merely a prop borrowed from their record company's mail room. He was never interviewed, so I doubted he was even real. Not so. He's real! His name is/was DJ Pause, and wouldn't you know it...he has a Myspace page here. In his page, I found this picture of Mordred today (below). Apparently they've dissolved into what looks like an aging janitorial staff on their day off. Though this is basically the same line-up as the renaissance themed version of the band that is also active right now, this version features DJ Pause and the old singer. Please don't ask me to explain all this, because I have a headache just thinking about it. It's like in Back To The Future, when there's two Marty McFly's at the "Enchantment Under The Sea" dance. I found videos of both versions of the band, one with the old annoying singer and with a DJ, and one with the other singer dressed like a knight of some kind. Both version appear to exist at the same time. Are you confused yet?



Not surprisingly, Mordred's bass player Art also has a Myspace page. In his page he doesn't list an occupation, probably to keep the entire world from laughing about the fact that the guy who wrote and played on the song with these lyrics:

Go to work? Ha, no way
I see you work so hard
To pay your credit card
I see you bust your ass
To buy a new bus pass
So you can go to work
Like every other jerk

Now works the third shift at a machine shop, and is managed by a teenager half his age. Them's the breaks, as they say in the south. Check out the picture I found on his page, it leads me to believe he has turned into your average angry filipino who wears a see through shirts while suffering from late stage alcoholism.



Lastly, let's all enjoy the seminal moment in Mordred's career, documented in video format for all of us to enjoy. Listen to the depth of their comentary on music and culture. Turkey's served. Dig in!

In a summer, a young man's fancy turns to wigger slam

With more and more wigger slam bands cropping up every day, it can be hard to keep up. That's what I am here for: to make sure that no guttural slamming brutality slips through the cracks for our readers! Our data indicates that most Metal Inquisition readers are primarily into dinosaur metal, so I know that most of you hate this stuff, but you should challenge yourself to man up and join the guttural slamming brutality crew!

If you don't feel you are ready for being a slam metal fan, you should stop reading immediately. Instead, pick up the Relapse catalog, put on some Mastodon or Braindrill, and enjoy the safety of fossil metal.

Cephalotripsy
http://www.myspace.com/cephalotripsy
Let's begin with what I feel is probably the best slam metal band in the history of guttural slamming brutality. I know that's a pretty bold statement, but after you give them a listen I think you will agree. Cephalotripsy is the best of Internal Bleeding combined with the crushing pit riffment necrotic embludgeonmenting of Devourment. Put this record on and you will be slamming around your room before you know it.

Gorevent
http://www.myspace.com/gorevent
I am not sure how to say the name of this band, but they are a great Japanese wigger slam band featuring ex-Rest In Gore members with some hot chick playing bass. They basically sound exactly like Rest In Gore, which is a really good thing. Just from this photo you can tell they will be sweet because it's a bunch of normal looking Japanese dudes wearing illegible death metal shirts, camo shorts and baseball hats. But getting back to the chick, look how good her hair is. I'm jealous of Asians because they have such naturally shiny, dark, straight hair, and it's so easy for them to have cool, piecey ends.


NJDOTS
http://www.myspace.com/njdots
NJDOTS is basically what New Yorkment would be if they weren't a joke band. If you don't know about some dirty Jer-Z shit now, you will after jamming their demo. NJDOTS stands for "New Jersey Department of Transportation Suicide," after the way that people kill themselves by throwing themselves in front of NJ Transit trains. They don't have any hardcore influences, but I would like to think that Rick Ta Life and ANT$ would be down with them anyway. It's all Jer-Z.

Abort Mastication
http://www.myspace.com/abortmastication
Here is another Japanese band that describes themself as "Brutaldeathmetal Goregrind Moshgore Grindcore Chaotic." To me it sounds like brutal death metal with a generous helping of slams, but you can be the judge. Mostly I just love their Engrish.

Liturgy
http://www.myspace.com/liturgychicago
Now technically this might not be wigger slam, and it's definitely not new, but I just came across this band and wanted to share. I was a big Cinerary fan, and this band has 2 or 3 guys from Cinerary, so you pretty much know what to expect: brutal as fuck death metal in the California style with Disgorge's Matti Way on vocals. How could you go wrong?!


Rest In Gore
http://www.myspace.com/restingoreofficial
Along with Disconformity and Glossectomy, Rest In Gore are leading the pack in terms of Japanese wigger slam. I know it's incredibly trite for internet metal nerds to worship obscure Japanese sub-subgenres, but the truth is that the Japs just know how to fucking slam like nobody else. Anyway this band sounds like all the other JPDM bands that I like but there is something special about them. Much like the Toyota production system has perfected the delivery of an automobile at the greatest possible efficiency, Rest In Gore deliver the maximum possible slams per second with ruthless Japanese efficiency.


Condemned
http://www.myspace.com/condemnedmetal
This album came out last year and in my opinion was extremely underrated. It is 3/4 of Cephalotripsy, and basically sounds the same except that they play mostly blasts instead of slamz. So it really wouldn't fit into a purist's orthodox definition of slam metal, but I am willing to bend the rules for you, our readers. I thought this album was one of the finest death metal albums I've ever heard, it's just wall-to-wall brutality with absolutely no melody or compromises. Dinosaur metal fans will probably be put off because there aren't any parts where they play Iron Maiden harmonies and none of the songs are about being a fucking Viking or whatever bullshit you people are into, but if you want guttural slamming brutality, you came to the right band. For fans of Disgorge, Deeds of Flesh, and other brutal California death metal, but unlike a lot of those other bands it never gets boring because they don't play too many tremolo riffs.