Nocturnus/Morbid Angel/After Death's Mike Browning

Mike Browning is a good poser test: Anybody who knows their shit will quickly tell you about Mike's role in shaping early Florida death metal. A founding member of Morbid Angel, he made his biggest contribution with Nocturnus. We make a lot of Nocturnus jokes, but trust me that we are all huge Nocturnus fans. I first heard them in 1991 or so on the legendary Earche comp "Grindcrusher" when their track "BC/AD" completely blew me away. I stuck with them and became a huge fan by the time I was out of high school. Lucho, Krusher, Awakening, me, and the other kids in our circle of weirdos who grew up listening to Youth of Today and Terrorizer literally talked about Nocurnus for fucking hours when we hung out. In particular I remember around 97 or 98, me and this one dude Vince (where are you broseph??) geeking out on "The Key"and making "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" noises at each other like the the keyboards on "Lake of Fire."

In contrast to many of his contemporaries (for instance the other dudes from Morbid Angel), who are complete fucking wingnuts, Mike seems like a cool, down-to-earth guy that doesn't take himself too seriously. That's a welcome change of pace, since there are way too many people who were in far less important bands who have their head completely up their own ass.

Washed up a-hole: "Do you know who I am?!?! I played bass in ROTTREVORE, you insolent fuck! Now kiss my pinkie and I'll forgive you."
Guy he is talking to: "Uh.... welcome to Olive Garden. How many people in your party?"

You don't hear his name nearly as much as you should these days, so we are super stoked to have Mike on Metal Inquisition!

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"BC/AD": Before Christ - I ruled the land! After death - I will rule once again!!

You made quite a mark on the death metal landscape in the 90s, but many of us lost track of you after that. What are you up to these days, both musically and otherwise? What do you do for a living?
Right now my band After Death is mixing a bunch of new songs we just recorded. There are 5 new songs and we rerecorded one off of our last Retronomicon CD and just for the fuck of it we recorded 2 old Morbid Angel songs Chapel of Ghouls(with The Invocation) and Angel of Disease from the Abominations of Desolation album, close to how they were done back in 1986, but still with some new elements as well. The last time we recorded was back in 2006, so we are way past due for some new material to be released! We also did a tour last October of Europe as After Death playing Nocturnus songs from The Key, which went over pretty well, so we may do that again sometime soon. Other than that I just work a regular day job for the water department in Tampa and work on my newest project a 1957 Chevy Bel Air that has become a fucking money pit, but it does haul ass!

Nocturnus was pretty out there for the early 90s. How did people react when you first came out? How does that differ from how people would react now, in a world where we've heard enough blast beats and sweep picking to sink a battleship?
The reactions were pretty good actually. I think because of The Science of Horror demo being heavier and less technical than The Key was, helped us to kind of break into a new style of death metal without going to far over the people's heads. But yeah today we might just have been the band of the week for the fucking sheeple that say they are death metal fans! Peoples attention spans these days are about as long as their dicks! And their attitudes are bigger!!!

OK, so maybe Mike is a little weird. But it could be a zillion times weirder/more embarrassing- just ask Evil D.

Are you familiar with the popular death metal band Nile? They have a lot of songs about having sex with mummies, pet sphinxes, and other weird Egyptian stuff. You had a mummy on the cover of your 7" many years before Nile came out, how do you feel about them stealing your gimmick?
Well we did use some Egyptian themes way before Nile, but actually I didn't play on that 7" you mentioned, that was after I left the band. My band After Death does a lot more Egyptian themed music now, but we don't sound anything like Nile. Our style of lyrics is also more about the magick and rituals that the Ancient Egyptians used. And we have a full time keyboard player, so we can make the whole song have more atmosphere instead of just an intro.

Classic, hilarious Nocturnus segment from "Hard N Heavy Grindcore" video. I love the part where the keyboardist talks about "thrashing where he's at" (1:20) and at 2:15 where they give advice to young bands who are thinking about moving to Florida to be closer to the epicenter of the scene.

Aside from mummies, Nocturnus' lyrics referenced all kinds of crazy shit like crystal balls, spaceships, droids, and so forth. Where did you come up with that stuff? Specifically, can you tell me what "Enter The Droids" is about?
In the beginning Nocturnus was mostly occult oriented lyrics, but when Mike Davis joined the band and started writing and had some lyrical ideas it turned more into sci-fi type stuff, so I mixed his ideas with mine and it came out to be some pretty crazy shit that I ended up writing about. The Key was pretty much a concept album about a guy going back in time and destroying Jesus Christ and taking over the world with future technology that he brought back with him.

"It was in one of the crashed alien ships that he found 'The Key' that was the finishing piece to make his time machine work"

It didn't really start as a concept album though, but as we kept writing songs they started to fit together like a puzzle and kind of ended up as a story, but each song could still stand on it's own. Enter The Droids was the part of the story where alien droid ships started attacking the Earth and the main character retreated to a cave where he built the time machine and it was in one of the crashed alien ships that he found "The Key" that was the finishing piece to make his time machine work.

Lord Browning sits atop his throne while he prepares a fiendish scheme to rape himself once he has his time machine back (it's been kind of sputtering lately when idling, probably just the O2 sensor)

Here on Metal Inquisition, we like to joke about "the Nocturnus time machine." For example, we have a whole section dedicated to "things I would destroy if I had access to the Nocturnus time machine." We also came up with a concept for scale models of the time machine. What would you do if you actually had access to the time machine you wrote about on "The Key"? I think I would go back in time to when I was a child and rape myself.
Man do you want me to make a fucking list or what!!! Hell there are tons of things I would go back and change if I had a time machine, especially some of the chicks I have met and had relationships with, that would probably be first on my list!!! I think some sweet revenge would be nice too for people that have wronged me, that's always nice to think about as well!!!

But why rape yourself when you can go back a bit farther and rape your mom and actually create yourself by raping your mom, now that's a fucking idea there!!! Maybe that will be my next concept album, so don't go stealing my idea like everyone else does!

If you were 20 years old today and starting a band, what would it sound like? What would your personal brand be?
I think I would have to say it might sound like After Death does now, pretty much I have always wanted to do atmospheric sounding occult metal! But if I was 20 again I don't know if I would have the discipline for it the way the world is today, but I would probably still make the same stupid mistakes anyway because I haven't changed much since then.

All goes well until :45 or so, then oh boy... the wheels fall right off the wagon. Then at 1:35 he starts talking about his Quake clan and you just want to hide out of vicarious embarrassment.

You know the guys in Morbid Angel well, right? Please watch this video of Trey Azagthoth hosting "Headbanger's Ball" and tell us what you think is going through his head. Other than, "I feel like the biggest fucking asshole on the planet."
What's funny is I knew Trey was going to be on Headbanger's Ball, so I actually saw that episode when it first aired and from knowing him all these years it was pretty much exactly what I expected to happen!!! I doubt he will ever try that one again!!!

Back in the day, it was mindblowing for someone to be able to play a blast beat, double bass, or tremolo riff at all. In retrospect, most of the musicianship was pretty amateurish by today's standards. As someone who was in one of the most technical, innovative bands of the 90s, how does it make you feel that these days every 16 year-old asshole kid can play sick blasts, sweep picked arpeggios, and 250 bpm double bass when people like you struggled so hard at pioneering these techniques?
It is all pretty relative because back then people thought that what we were doing was mind blowing and now I see these kids playing twice as fast and not even breaking a sweat. I think because the kids these days are brought up on this stuff and didn't have to progress into it or create it, that they come from a different mindset. Only problem is not a one of them have any originality, they all want and do sound like someone else and even worse is they want to be that way! There is no more originality anymore, so maybe it all has been done!

Can you imagine how amazing it would be to live next to this, then find out it belonged to Mike Browning?! My mind would explode, like if I saw Glen Benton buying Little League outfits for his kids.

When I listen to Nocturnus, I always have a visual in my head to go along with the song. For example, "Empire of The Sands" reminds me of the Jawas in "Star Wars." Did you have any visuals in mind when you were writing them? If so, share the one that you think would be most surprising to us.
The whole goal of Nocturnus was to create an atmosphere with the music and lyrics together and this has always been what I would consider success over making money, not that making money is bad, but to me this is the greatest compliment someone can say about my music. When I write the lyrics, usually the whole idea pops into my head with a title that sums it up and I have a visual of the whole song like a movie playing out inside my head so at that point the lyrics start flowing sometimes so fast I can hardly write them down before I forget them. I usually have to find a paper and pen right away and end up writing the whole song in less than 10 minutes!

"I see this guy kicking the stable door down wearing some kind of a futuristic space suit and just blasting away Joseph, Mary and the 3 wise men and then saving the baby Jesus in his little manger for last"

I would say as far as Nocturnus it would probably be Destroying The Manger, where I see this guy kicking the stable door down wearing some kind of a futuristic space suit and just blasting away Joseph, Mary and the 3 wise men and then saving the baby Jesus in his little manger for last as he starts laughing hysterically maybe with a cigar in his mouth like a true superhero would and just blasts the whole manger to smithereens!!! It would make a great movie don't ya think!!!

This song is the origin of the "Nocturnus time machine" meme:

ENTER THE DROIDS / Cybernetic cralts approaching / Through skies lit with fusion discharge / Androids from the gamma quadrant / Moving at the speed of death / Now the human race is so vulnerable / Invasion set for attack / "Enter the Droids" / Command-Mission-Destroy-Planet-Three-From-Their sun / Caught within my tractor beam / Bringing the craft to me / Disable the robot for my own use / to aid my escape / Fleets of ships are now arriving,overtaking / Physical evasion is my only demise / Left to me for my survival / Gaining data from their system,overriding / To complete my invention,the time machine / Only question is"will it function"?

Pretend you get to write the metal history books. What would you like people to remember about you and your work?
Well I have never claimed to be some kind of an amazing musician, so more than anything I would want to be remembered as the one and only Mike Browning!

More info: After Death on MySpace, Mike Browning's MySpace, Nocturnus on Encyclopaedia Metallum. Also check out this 2008 interview with Mike courtesy of I Could Die Tomorrow. After Death is currently finishing up a new album, which we'll post about when it's done- stay tuned.

Why Candlemass rules above all other shitty Swedish bands

***PLEASE NOTE: THIS POST DOES NOT CONTAIN ANY REFERENCES TO SWEDISH DEATH OR BLACK METAL.

I have never been much of a Candlemass fan. I don't know something about fat Swedish guys with brillopad hair wearing a Slanket never really turned my crank (Yes, I am aware he's not in the band anymore). However, if you follow my Twitter (and really, why wouldn't you?), then you'd know I've developed a little bit of an obsession with them. I have rediscovered them, if you will. Now, does the fact that I just started liking a band in 2009 that has been around since the 80s make me a poser? If some cretin came to me and told me he just now got into Hellhammer, I'd probably label him a fuckwad poser and steal his car. That's the usual poser punishment around here. Well, call me what you will, but I like Candlemass now. I did have Candlemass Live on cassette in high school, although I only listened to it once.

Other than the occasional Sabbath song here and there and some Paradise Lost, I don't usually dig on the sludgy slow doomy type shit, but lately Candlemass (and Messiah's fatness) have changed that. It's not only that I have found their songs incredibly catchy or that I have rediscovered how fat (and therefore funny) Massiah is, but the music seems to match my mood as of late. It's not that I have been sad or depressed. Quite the contrary, I have been on the up and up (which you'd also know if you follow my Twitter), but somehow their slow tunes have become an anthem to my life these days. Whatever, I'm a fucking werido.

The reason for this post, tho, is not to talk about the average Candlemass tunes, Messiah's fatness or to promote my Twitter, but to talk about the awesomest songs the Swedish meatballs, known as Candlemass, ever recorded. Read on, my friends. Read on!

Sweden has a long standing and well documented history of shit music. Who can forget Hick?

This image is so fucking funny on it's own, I'm not even gonna bother trying to say anything witty, mean or in anyway "funny" about it. I'll just point one thing out. We found Ron Weasely's real dad!

And there's Faith! Who can forget Faith? Who can forget the Doom pioneers who brought us the "Hymn of the Sinner" 7" single? Who can forget them? Not me! Mostly because it's hard to forget something you'd never heard of before until doing web research for a long-winded and all around retarded post about a second rate band like Candlemass.

From L to R: Assclown wearing my mom's suede boots // Moustache wilding frontman with a poodle haircut, my sister's sweater, my gym socks circe 1984 and a crucifix keychain // Guy looking sad 'cuz his mom won't let him grow his hair long // And... wait is that a dude or an ugly chick?

I didn't wanna bring these guys up, but...

So many poodle haircuts I don't know what to do. I wonder if that's like a "Swedish Thing", these terrible haircuts.

And then there's ABBA... Fuck me with a 15" black dildo! This whole Mama Mia! bullshit could have been avoided if these fucktarts would have died in their teens. *Sigh*, how I long for Nocturnus' Time Machine right now... Way to go Sweden, thanks for nothing.

Is it me, or does everyone in this picture look like his wearing a wig?

But all of the Swedish musical "legends," none is bigger (or lamer, really), than this gentleman. Allow me to introduce to Sigge Furst, a true Swedish icon. He was a mediocre actor and a horribly bad singer during the 40s, 50s and 60s.

He did more than 130 movies, and I'm sure they were all "very good." I wonder if the Swedes understood the concept of Two Thumbs Down in the 50s... Anyway, he was in the incredibly entertaining musical "I Dur Och Skur." What a picture that was! They sure don't make them like that anymore. Sven Lindberg was also very good in this movie. I recommend you put it on your Netlix list right away. In your Swedish Netflix, AKA "NeetFliiks"

And let us not forget the TV masterpiece "Himmel Och Pannkaka" featuring the incomparable Gunmar Bjornstand. That show was a kneeslapper! Imagine a mixture of Seinfeld, Gilligan's Island and and The Benny Hill Show! Actually that's not it at all, I just made that up. I have never seen and Sweedish TV, unless you count soft porn as "TV."

So, what does the prodigious Sigge Furst have to do with Candlemass? Aside from also being a Swede, in a stroke of true Swedish genius, in 1993 Candlemass decided to cover four songs by the late legend in an EP aptly titled "Sjunger Sigge Furst." I'm not sure why I said "aptly", since i have no idea WTF "Sjunger" means, but maybe I wanted to sound smart, and the use of words like "aptly" make you sound smarter than you actually are. I got a B in drafting once.

In any case, I think the whole EP is brilliance on mp3. Below, please find both, the original and the cover, of the catchy tune called "Bullfest." I don't really know if they even have bulls in Sweden, so I'm not sure what the song is about, but I love it! If it doesn't make you wanna get up and dance, there's obviously something really, really wrong with you. Or maybe there's something really, really wrong with me. Actually, I know there's something really, really wrong with me, so please disregard the previous statement.

I hope enjoyed that as much as I did. Probably not, but then again, I'm not sure I care.

Here's something else I found that I thought was interesting... Apparently Sigge Furst is not the only has-been dipshit Candlemass paid tribute to in the 90s.

So, what have we learned today, kids? Well, we learned that there is no cattle in Sweden, that I have serious psychological issues and that gluttony is a sin. Go fuck yourselves. Porn.

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Sgt D launches Stuff You Will Hate

I am sure many of you are tired of reading about the horrible shit that I like, especially when it doesn't have much to do with metal. With that in mind, I started a new blog in which I will post about things that you will hate, but I love- appropriately enough it is entitled Stuff You Will Hate. Naturally, my first post is about a new crunkcore band that gives BrokeNCYDE a run for their money called Scene Kidz:

For my inaugural post on Stuff You Will Hate, I will introduce you to the only current challengers to BrokeNCYDE's crunkcore crown: Scene Kidz, straight out of Greenwood, Indiana. Yes, you read that correctly, these kids are from a crappy suburb of Indianapolis that is a dump even by the remarkably low standards of Indiana (although I hear the Hampton's Market there is off the fuckin chain).

I know what you are thinking: what kind of a fucking name is Scene Kidz? Isn't that like when Dismember imaginatively titled their album "Death Metal"? I'll grant you that it's a bit intellectually lazy, but like Dismember's album, the name doesn't lie. They are indeed scene kids, albeit rather homely Midwest ones. Despite being entry-level in pretty much every respect, these kids definitely know how to get crunk when it comes to their music!

Read more at Stuff You Will Hate

How can Metal Inquisition use its fans to become a more successful operation?

Ruth Scanlon, Director Of Marketing at Metal Inquisition, presents her findings based on last Monday's input from readers.

After collecting all the data about our reader's through Monday's post, we quickly turned that information over to our marketing and operations departments. It was the marketing department, after all, that had asked us to gather this data to begin with. Armed with information about our readership, the marketing department put an 89 page report (a horrible Powrpoint slidewhow actually) which is supposed to make our future posts better suited to our readership. The information you gave us will also allow us to launch a more successful ad campaign down the line, and will inform future marketing decisions. First on the agenda, for example, is the great Metal Inquisition Yo-Yo giveaway of 2009. Stay tuned for all the details.

In order not to bore you to death with the details of the lengthy Powrpoint slidewhow, I will merely give you some bullet points. As you'll see, the main recommendations I'll share with you are about using our readers for our purposes, in order to make our operation run more efficiently. I think we will all benefit as a result.

Everytime I see a picture of this guy from the band Disturbed, my blood boils with anger.

Some of our readers are younger than we thought, as such we will make less references to Nocturnus, Voivod, Tankard, Sarcofago, Mortal Sin, Napalm Death and Brutal Truth in the future. All Nocturnus time machine references will be changed to comments about Slipknot, Distrubed and Lamb Of God. The really bad news for me is that I may actually have to find out who Lamb Of God are, or what they sound like. Same with that band Distrubed*. Ughhh....damn you marketing department! Similarly, we will now hold Tommy Victor in high regard due to his amazing fashion sense, and his affinity for Affliction clothing.


*After writing this insanely funny part of the post, I realized that the bands I used as examples of music young people would listen to, peaked in popularity nearly 5 to 10 years ago, thus proving how out of it I am. It's like your grandfather saying "Are you into that crazy new rock music? Do you like Fleetwood Mac?"






Many of our readers are from countries outside the United States, this means that from now on all references that are overly western shall be changed. If any of us must make a reference to any sport, it will be cricket (which the marketing department found to be a " location neutral" sport). We will also start spelling words like "color" as "colour".

This reminds me, I fully expect that those of you who have good jobs, and don't live like slobs (I'm looking at all of you 20 year old unemployed readers) will host me next time I travel outside of the United States. By my calculations, I should be able to stay for free in nice accommodations with people who are lawyers, scientists, web developers and teachers in pretty much every continent. Singapore, South Africa, Finland, Norway, Australia, Portugal... these all sound like great distinations to me. As far as our reader who lives in Toledo Ohio..I'm not at all interested in visiting your city, so don't leave the light on for me. What will you show me once I'm there? The newest wing that was recently added to Franklin Park Mall? Tony Packos? Will you take me to a Mudhens game? I'll pass. Similarly, I'll pass on going to Poland. You know a country is in bad shape when its greatest tourist attraction is a damn concentration camp. Look, I've been there, and my only fond memory of the trip would have to be when I saw a drunken man unknowingly walk through another drunken man's stream of urine.

Preliminary renderings of the new MI headquarters in Geneva.

We have at least one architect as a reader, which will come in handy when we finally decide to build our new world headquarters in Geneva. Maria, I'm talking to you, sharpen up those skills, and start thinking about some possible schemes. To any other architects who are reading this, I have to warn you, we are unbelievably good at writing about metal (duh), but we are terrible clients and can never make up our minds. Consider the ongoing arguments that MI staffers have been having about Voivod being good or not. After nearly 10 years we have yet to come to a unified conclusion. As such, I will make an executive decision right now and tell you what we're looking for: Something ala Richard Meier, but ideally not inspired by his work at the Getty center, which I find to be lacking in cohesive narrative. Much like Slayer could do no wrong...until they did wrong, Meier too had his fall. Since you live in Barcelona, I should tell you that I was not impressed with MACBA. Start sketching, I would like to see four alternative direction by next Monday.







We have a few lawyers as a readers, Lou C Fer being just one of them. He practices law in Spain. By the way, why do they call it "practicing" law? If you have a degree, I hope you are done practicing, and you know how to do things right. I know, I know, that last insightful bit about "practicing law" made me sound out of it, and a bit like Andy Rooney.

Damn, the marketing department just informed me that an Andy Rooney reference is too Ameri-centric for our international readers. I'll go back and fix it before I publish this.

Anyway, Lou (if I may call you Lou) we will need your help in the next few months, since you practice in Spain. Like my post about Manowar and the houses they live in, we are currently working on a devastating piece about Baron Rojo (see photo above), their homes and their preferred methods for hair loss prevention. The piece will surely anger the band, and will have endless legal ramifications, so we'd like to keep you on retainer.







For future posts that may include the topic of sports, our marketing department has instructed us to bring in the one professional athlete within our readership, one Marizle Farizle, as a consultant. The first post for which we will need his help will be about John Jospeh, singer of the Cro-Mags, and his use of a full Saxo Bank kit in this video where he teaches us all how to work out like an urban warrior. Wait, scratch that, I just got a memo from the marketing folks...the post will be about cricket, and how great of a sport it is.






Due to overwhelming response from our readers about our recent Metal Inquisition Archives post, we are recruiting a few of our readers who are librarians, to properly care for these delicate materials. As part of your duties you will be caring for my personal collection of Beta tapes, which include all the Danzig homve videos, Ultimate Revenge 1 and 2, a few Metallica bootlegs, and hours of Headbager's Ball shows (circa 1990). Along with this collection, the vintage issues of Metal Hammer (circa 1987-1989) will have to be cataloged. Similarly we will need to have our guitar pic collection classified and organized, the same holds true for our collection of Wild Rag newsletters (our equivalent to a Gutenberg bible). We are unable to pay you for these duties, the economy being what it is, but hope that you'll take a Mythic 7" and a Flotsam and Jetsam signed 8"x10" as payment.

To represent "finances", we have been instructed by the marketing folks to use images of the British pound, since it does not have the cultural baggage that the American dollar does.

Due to Metal Inquisition's finances being in complete shambles, we are bringing in a reader to help us sort things out. CallPastorBob is an accounting clerk, and should be able to sort out our situation out very quickly. You see, we are extremely profitable as a company, but have been having some issues with expenses over the last few months. Sergeant D keep expensing things like his Chris Isaak tattoo, and $1800 worth of XS Energy drink from Amway, although he claimed this was "research", I'm a bit suspicious. Similarly, Mr Gene Hoglan's Balls has just expensed his eight copy of the Grindcrusher sampler cassette. With irresponsible employees like this, I ask you, how long we can stay profitable?






We couldn't help but notice that an unusually high percentage of you work in nursing homes. While we have no use for your skills here at MI (I mean, I may wear orthodics and feel like an old man, but I'm still in my prime), we would still like to work with you on a project that we are currently developing. You see, Sergeant D has had a little pet project going for some time (aside from his Amway colabo with Waking the Cadaver), and it's now time to kick it into high gear. I'm talking, of course, about his research into using Benediction's music as a sleeping aid for the elderly. Contact us, and we'll make sure to get you started on this most important project.






Latly, I should now let you all in on the fact that the last question we asked you (about going back in time and letting the bus run Lars over instead of Cliff) was not merely a question. Oh no. We were taking requests. As you know, here at Metal Inquisition we own the actual Nocturnus time machine. We bought it from Mike Browning recently, when he was in need for some quick cash in order to buy more Egyptian decor for his Florida home. Although we've owned the time machine for about four months now, Mike took a while to send us The Key that starts it up. Now that we have (word to the wise, never use FedEx when sending The Key to a time machine) we wanted to know what our maiden voyage should be. The concesus seems to be that running the tiny Danish man would make him into a martyir, which we certainly don't want to do. As such, we are now clueless as to what our first trip in time should be. Any suggestions?

It's all about our fans, so introduce yourselves

Fans at our last autograph signing in New York City.

If you're like me, and you've been around metal long enough, you've probably heard every band on earth talk about how "it's all about the fans". Gene Simmons says it all the time, and Lars Ulrich says it every hour on the hour. He's so timely about it, actually, that most atomic clocks are set according to Lars spewing that line. Look, I know that Gene Simmons doesn't really count as "metal", but you get my point. I mean, I've even heard David Vincent say that "it's all about the fans"...so you know it must be true. Here at Metal Inquisition, we are no different. We love our fans, although it's worth mentioning that unlike Gene, and Lars, our fans have not afforded us the ability to live off of them. Notice I didn't include David Vincent in that last part about living off of someone, since I wouldn't exactly consider renting a two bedroom apartment in Tampa, along with our wife and three kids "living". Still, our monetary situation may change soon, since our line of yo-yos has yet to drop.

But I'm getting off topic. Over the last year and a half many of you have gotten to know us, the MI staff, through our fantastically well-written pieces. Now, we'd like to learn more about you, the MI reader. I often look to see who is currently reading the blog, and I see people from Argentina, Bulgaria, Italy, Turkey, and Belize. I also see readers from odd places like Exxon, Yale and Harvard, who I'm sure are writing their Phd dissertations about wigger slam, and are currently using us as a source. Through all this I'm left to wonder, much like Jerry Seinfeld did, "who are these people?" So I'm now asking you to tell us. Please! In the comments section, please answer the following:


1. Where do you live? (City, country)

2. How old are you?

3. What do you do for a living?

4. How did you first come to the blog?

5. How often do you check the blog?

6. If you had access to the Nocturnus time machine, would you go back in time and make the bus run Lars over instead of Cliff ?

Retroview: Nocturnus "The Key"

I can't believe that in the 18 months or so that this blog has been up, we've never actually written about Nocturnus in depth! What a tragedy! "The Key" is a classic of sci-fi death metal, and was highly influential to me as a youngster who loved video games and shred guitar. In retrospect it is mostly only good for laughs, but as the album that brought us the Nocturnus time machine, we would be remiss if we didn't take the time to discuss each song.

1. Lake of Fire
I guess this song is about Hell? It's kind of a slow start to the album in my opinion. I mean, the thought of going to Hell is definitely scary, but it isn't really as interesting as droids, time machines, or Jawas like some of the other songs.

Encyclopedia Metallum doesn't say so, but I suspect the guy who played keyboards in Nocturnus went on to jam with Lil John

Musically, though, this is perhaps the definitive Nocturnus song! It highlights two of the elements that make Nocturnus who they are. First, you can tell that the drummer is also the singer because he obviously cannot handle juggling multiple rhythms and says every word on a snare hit. Second, I don't expect lavish, baroque piano passages or whatever, but the keyboard playing is laughably simplistic. Like this song, it goes "Lake! Of! Fire! *weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee*" I seriously think he is just holding down two keys during the entire chorus. It makes Lil John seem like a keyboard virtuoso.

About 10 or 11 years ago, when I was at the height of my Nocturnus obsession, my friend Vince and I would sometimes just blurt out "Lake! Of! Fire! *weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee*" and play air keyboards. I haven't seen that guy in ages but I'd like to know what happened to him, he was a cool guy. Last I heard he was making his living selling jeans on eBay or something??

This is the only Carcass song I like. The rest are boring, un-brutal dinosaur metal.

2. Standing in Blood
Aside from the main riff being stolen from "Criminally Insane," there isn't much about this song that's remarkable. I'm just going to skip it, because there are much better songs to spend time writing about.

Instead, I will tell a story about Carcass. Many years ago I was friends with this guy Don who was in a hardcore band called Spudmonsters that were apparently pretty popular in Europe. They toured with Carcass, and Don said "We were really scared, we didn't know what these guys were gonna be like! Then they come out, and they're a bunch of skinny vegans with dreadlocks and pink guitars!"

Along the same lines, I saw Obituary in 97 with Kiss It Goodbye and this post-hardcore band called Stillsuit. I was just standing around with my girlfriend at the time, and one of the dudes (his name was Manny) came up to us out of the blue and said "Uh, hey, what's up? You guys are like the only people here not wearing black death metal shirts so I just thought I'd hang out with you if that's cool?" Turns out that he was an original member of DMS, which was pretty funny, but that he had also never heard Obituary before this tour. "We were stoked to hear them, because we figured they would be like really gnarly technical shit, but then when we heard them play for the first time we were like 'What the fuck, this sounds like 25 Ta Life!'"

3. Visions from Beyond the Grave
This is the first song where it starts to get interesting! Up until this point, the lyrics could really be from any run-of-the-mill death metal/thrash band. But once you start getting crystal balls in the mix, it starts to feel like Nocturnus!

Communicate with the dead, after life
communicate with the dead, after death
asking questions, through my crystal ball
now we'll see, what lies, from beyond

The dead will arise
when I invoke
them through
my crystal ball

If I had a crystal ball, the last thing I would be doing is talking to dead people. They would probably just complain, or ask me to say hi to people who are still alive that they miss. Like "Bro, will you say hi to Guy 'Hard On' Sikes for me?? I love that dude!" I would probably use my crystal ball to look at boobies somehow. Like I said the other day, I hope when I die, I come back as the mirror in a Forever 21 dressing room. Maybe Nocturnus could write a song about that?? They seem to be into stuff like reincarnation.

4. Neolithic
I'll be honest, I don't really get this song. It's about the ice age or something, and continents drifting apart and stuff. Not really sure how that fits into the whole time machine/Satan theme... maybe Mike Browning had just taken an Intro to Geology class at Dade County Community College and wanted to show off his newly acquired knowledge? Who knows.

You have to admit, this could be a lost Nocturnus track!

Musically, this song is actually pretty decent. It kind of reminds me of the soundtrack for Castlevania: Symphony of The Night, especially that one song "Dracula's Castle." Man, I need to play that game again. The DS and GBA games are great and all, but nothing beats SOTN.

6. Before Christ/After Death
Like many people, this was the song that originally got me into Nocturnus when I heard it on "Grindcrusher." In fact, if I'm not mistaken I think I saw them on the Grindcrusher tour with Napalm Death or something?? This would have been like 1990 so the details are extremely fuzzy.

Before Christ no one cared
evil was in everyone's heart
sins were committed every day of your life
there was no wrong from right

Then he came to change it all
he really thought he could do some good
the son of God sent to this Earth
but the Romans showed him what he was worth

Anyway, this song is apparently about how everything was cool and chill until Jesus came along and ruined everybody's fun. So they decided to kill him. They're all "Dude that guy Jesus is hella uptight, what's his fuckin problem? I just wanted to chillax with these false idols, do some gambling, and hang out with those money changers at the temple and he totally freaked out. Not cool!" So then they had to kill him to show him who was boss.

7. Andromeda Strain
This song is about chemical warfare. Sort of like the Slayer song "Chemical Warfare." It describes how Nocturnus used their powers to create a powerful biological weapon that they unleashed on humanity:

Modern warfare of today
brings forth a new technology

Killing through scientific means
destroy the world with technology
Now we'll see what is to be
inescapability

Cloud masses concentrate
osmosis fills the sky, sky

Scattered remains, bodies left to decay
on this disease stricken earth, plague of Andromeda Strain

Affected by the gas
reduce them to subhuman form

As I glimpse at, swelled up corpses
infested with, radiated insects

Now I don't mean to be a dick, but I have to say that the writing is remarkably poor in this song. For example, "Modern warfare of today." Isn't that a bit redundant? And "Osmosis fills the sky, sky": First of all, osmosis isn't a thing that would "fill the sky." Second, it's obvious that they repeated "sky" because they needed another syllable in the line, which is about the laziest solution possible. I think this song would have benefited from another round of editing. Perhaps Dade County Community College has some creative writing classes or something that could help?

This is kind of how I felt when I read the lyrics to "Droid Sector" for the first time

8. Droid Sector
Now this is where the album starts to get really good! In terms of lyrical content, this is probably my favorite song on the album (emphasis mine):

Cybernetic crafts approaching
through skies lit with fusion discharge
androids from the Gamma quadrant
moving at the speed of death

Now the human race is so vulnerable
invasion set for the attack
"Enter The Droids"

Command - Mission - Destroy - Planet -
Three - From - Their Sun

Caught within my tractor beam
bringing the craft to me
disable the robot for my own use
to aid in my escape

ENTER THE DROIDS

Fleets of ships are now arriving, overtaking
physical evasion is my only demise
left to me for my survival

Gaining data from their systems, overriding
to complete my invention, the time machine
only question is "Will it function?"

God, where do I even start?! Gamma quadrant? Tractor beam?? ENTER THE DROIDS?! Every line is more bonkers than the last. It's sort of like when you try to befriend the weirdo kid in school that eats his own boogers and sits in the back of the room by himself all the time. You're like, "Hey Mike Browning, what are you drawing?" and he's like "It's a droid from Gamma quadrant. It has dual tractor beams, fusion discharge cannons, and a time machine. He's on a recon mission, scouting this sector before the rest of the droids come and destroy your puny race." You really don't know what to say then, so you are just like "Oh... uh, that's cool. Well good luck with that!" and slowly back away. You know it's bad when it's so dorky and weird that it freaks out even socially awkward metal nerds like me.

Things Nocturnus would destroy if they had access to a time machine: baby Jesus

9. Destroying the Manger
In case you aren't familiar with it, this song is the origin of the "Nocturnus time machine" meme. It is about using a time machine to travel back to 0 BC and killing Jesus in the cradle:

Mastering the forces of teleportation
gaining the secrets to travel through time
approaching the vortex, chronometer reading 0 B.C.

What was the past will soon be changed
my first priority to destroy the manger
crushing the myth of paradox

Look, I understand that music is entertainment and escapism, but this is just embarrassing. In the same way as you shake your head with embarrassment whenever some idiot in a band talks about his dumb "concept album" or whatever, this makes you wonder what it was like when Mike Browning brought this song to practice: "Hey guys, I have a new song, it's about building a time machine, going back to 0 BC, and killing baby Jesus!" I'm picturing an uncomfortable silence punctuated by an awkward cough, then one of the guys who is the nice one that hates conflict is like "Uh, sounds awesome... wanna show us the first riff?" and looks at everyone else, giving them that look like "Come on, be cool!"

Mike Browning is driving this

10. Empire of the Sands
I love this one too!! My favorite part is the sounds of whips at the beginning before the song actually starts. I think it is about how after they kill Jesus, Nocturnus builds a fortress on some desert planet where they rule over their massive empire after summoning ancient gods with their Commodore 64:

computer summons ancient evil
forces beyond recognition
evoking Gods of Sumerian origin
deeply buried in the sands

Obeying the matrix
the tyrant commands
submissive controller
armies of the Empire

For whatever reason, this song makes me think of the Jawas' Sandcrawler from The Empire Strikes Back. It also makes me remember the precise moment I realized I was a huge dork. I had been listening to this song (on my cassette Walkman, of course), then went to hang out with my friend Nick Ganig from Cleveland. We went to the arcade, and on the way there we listened to the Redbook audio tracks from a burned copy of the Japanese version of Ridge Racer in his car. I think we played Die Hard Arcade and Powerstone, then went to his parents' house and played Dreamcast? That was fun, I miss that guy!

Nocturnus meets Queen?!

Closing thoughts
Well, I think that's about everything that could possibly be said about this album, and then some! If you haven't listened to it, you really should, if only to get a glimpse into the warped, childlike mind of Mike Browning. It really is unique, and is perhaps the only album in the genre of "time machine metal"? Although the Oxiplegatz record kind of reminds me of it...

Where are they now: Blue Grape Merchandise

Back in 1992, my brother and I would go down to the supermarket on a bi-monthly basis in order to pick up the latest issue of Metal Maniacs. After checking out the main articles and the poster, there was only one thing to look for....the Blue Grape Merchandise ad in the back. Over the years, we spent a small fortune on Blue Grape's horribly produced shirts and other assorted merchandise, helping the company make upwards of $20 million a year from idiots like us. I don't know why we wasted our money on their shirts...we are both short and rather slight, while Blue Grape's shirts were sized like tarps or circus tents.

Looking back, I can't remember if Blue Grape offered shirts in sizes other than XXL and up, but based on the shirts from back then that my brother and I still have...I think Blue Grape estimated that the average size of a metal fan was roughly 5'2" tall and 5'6" wide. Below is an accurate computer rendering of what I looked like wearing my Blue Grape Obituary shirt circa 1992.

Is that the Liberty Bell? No, just Lucho wearing his Obituary shirt.

Notice how my feet stuck out at the bottom, making me look like a scale model of the Liberty Bell. This attractive look basically made my feet look like the the part of a bell that swings like a pendulum as I walked, striking the actual bell/shirt. That part of a bell is called a "clapper", but I didn't know if anyone would know that. Anyway, I really don't know why we kept buying their wares. At one point, we actually placed such a large order that they sent us a gift certificate, with which we bought (I'm not kidding) a small, t-shirt shaped sign for my brother's new car. The sign was just like one of those "baby on board" signs, including the suction cup, but was of a tiny Sepultura shirt, which said "Tour 1989" on the back. I would love to go on and on making fun of them for producing such a stupid artifact, but we were dumb enough to buy it. My brother had it on the back window of his car for some time, until the heat began to melt and warp one of the sleeves...thus enlarging it, much like an actual Blue Grape t-shirt, or their coveted Prong hockey jerseys.

When I first decided to write a little something about Blue Grape, I thought I would find ample information about the once-leading purveyor of metal related attire. Not so. Like the Incas, who disappeared and only left behind Machu Picchu for us to admire, all that remains of Blue Grape are some ill-fitting circus tents in my closet and some faint memories. While I found several phone numbers online for the now forgotten company, all were disconnected. Their site is now down, a mere memory of a once great shirt empire. Similarly, their office (see photo below) which was located on Broadway in New York City, is now probably vacant. I picture tumbleweed rolling around the empty cubicles, as a single Prong hockey jersey still hanging proudly on the wall.

Blue Grapes former world headquarters were located over this Levi's store in Manhattan. Prime real estate for a company that sold Deicide keychains and shirts.

I found one posting of a job at Blue Grape from 2004. $50,000 a year for a Senior Production Director. I also found an interesting interview with Felix Sebacious, then VP at Blue Grape in which he discusses how Blue Grape started to make panties, and how he was able to get Glen Benton to sign the merchandise deal for Deicide. Sebacious recalls:

"When he finally agreed to a meeting time, it could only be at 7 a.m. on a Sunday in the backyard of his house. Before discussing his contract, he insisted that I help him give his lizard an injection of antibiotics. We went through this whole bonding experience that included holding the thing down and giving it the shot, but in the end, we were able to get the contract signed quite easily, and it turned out to be a rather lucrative merchandising deal."

As interesting as I found this interview, I was left wanting more. What had happened to this once great empire? I had way too many questions. Was it their horrendous sizing strategy that had finally put them out of business? Did the managers at the factories where Sepultura patches were made get carpal tunnel from endlessly beating the Filipino boys who made those artifacts? Was "Sebacious" a real last name? I had to keep investigating.


In the past, I have written about my memories of long-forgotten merchants in the world of metal such as Wild Rags Records. After writing that post, I ended up with more questions than answers, though our readers did manage to fill in some blanks via their comments. Like Blue Grape, Wild Rags largely fell off the map suddenly. In Wild Rags' case it was mostly as a result of having peaked before the internet boom. Not content simply letting the whole thing go, I thought I should contact a friend of mine who is in the very business that Blue Grape was in, merchandise and licensing. Even from such an industry insider, I was only able to gather a tiny bit of information. Blue Grape was bought out by Bravado just a few years back. They had started to license some non-metal brands, and after being bought out, all those other licenses were dumped. Sadly, this is all the information I was able to gather. Do any readers have any more information, or perhaps stories about their ill-sized Blue Grape merch?