Rigor Mortis vs. the Earth

A most audacious undertaking that was… to take on the whole world… but if someone had to do it, it had got to be the Rigors. After all, how many acts out there can brag about the possession of a guitar wizard like Mike Scaccia (R.I.P.)… take a short pause here, to honour the man who most untimely left this Earth ten years ago…

but he and his comrades did lay the foundations for this bellicose enterprise, first with the seismic debut, a most glorious thrash/death compendium carved by Scaccia’s visionary pyrotechnics, the openly aggressive delivery firmly putting them on the road to an eventual full-on death metal baptism, having in mind said genre’s growing popularity, the late Bruce Corbitt (R.I.P.) most handsomely epitomizing the ultimate threatening shouter behind the mike for this kind of exploits... another short commemorative pause taken here.

Exploits which took a really nice “freaky” direction with the “Freaks” EP a year later, except that this wasn’t a total surrender to the deathly currents. The band had chosen the thrash trajectory to pursue, doing an admirable job with a more technical lustre exhibited, the latter culminating on the supreme instrumental saga “Six Feet Under”, ravishing multi-layered thrash in all shapes and nuances, a milestone in vocalless musical genius, Scaccia’s crowning achievement.

Sounded like a dress rehearsal for a potential showdown with Planet Earth this tantalizing “freaky” occurrence, and here they are, our heroes, taking the world by storm. Add an imposing atmospheric orchestral intro to get everyone in the mood for full-fledged classic thrash feats, and half the job is done... yep, that’s right; half. The big ambition displayed with the intro doesn’t plant its roots very deeply here, the guys scattering their delivery far’n wide, just courting and teasing the death metal fraternity (“Asphyxia”, “Mummified”) again before attempting some meeker galloping power/thrash with “SOG”. Later on there’s crossover (“Dead Fish”), Motorhead-ish rock’n rollas (“Speed Whore”), a faithfully reproduced cover of The Ramones (“Psycho Therapy”), and the pretty cool but deliberately non-thrashy hard’n heavy instrumental “Afterbirth of a Midget”, this one at least taking full advantage of Scaccia’s masterful handling of the six strings.

The axeman also pulls himself together on the standout technical shredder “The Rack”, the undisputable highlight here, but elsewhere he doesn’t strain himself, still giving his fair share to the sculpting of this not very predictable but also hardly exceptional opus, the band diversifying their palette with a wider gamut of strokes, hoping to reach wider audience. Nope, that wasn’t the way, although again there was nothing inherently wrong with this album; it’s just that the capricious 90’s generation was ultimately hard to please with retro fanfares… and it turned out that it wasn’t exceedingly happy with the death metal streak, either, as that last genre couldn’t quite reach a golden status, falling under the groovy/numetal hammer. In this train of thought, the guys would have hardly covered themselves with fortune and glory if having chosen the fields of death earlier, even with such a confrontational, scary presence as Corbitt. Scaccia never ventured into the tech-death realm, leaving the latter to musicians from other acts like Death, Pestilence, Gorguts…

The band folded so shortly after this effort’s release that the impression left was that they themselves mustn’t have been very happy with the final result. Quite honestly, they have nothing to be ashamed of; the uncertain early-90’s environment produced much worse offenders than this diverse, charmingly unfocused recording which still contains enough attractive tunes to compel me to sit sometimes and give it a spin from beginning to end. I never fall into fits and seizures the way I do when listening to the first instalment, save for moments from the mentioned “The Rack”, but I still commend the band for trying to confront the whole world… back in those times when it seemed like our beloved planet was up for grabs by new invaders… and a breeze of diverse old school metallisms could possibly prevent the latter from violating it beyond repair.

“…hello, good evening and welcome to another edition of blood, devastation, death, war and horror…”

Like a military jet is how Rigor Mortis’ discography takes off, and it’s not long before remnants of the speed-hauling and stealthless debut’s ignition can only be traced by its long tail of black smoke way in the distance. Eventually it shears through a small and almost insignificant cloud that is the Demons single, causing only a minuscule loss in altitude and velocity. Shortly thereafter it slices into a slightly larger, albeit freakier one of stormier weather, marginally disfiguring its nose cone and throwing it mildly off-balance, though with a brief relief in thrust it regains control and evens out with about 86% terminal velocity. However, despite a long stretch of touring through ‘90/’91’s bluer skies, its known red line only begins to approach cruise control velocity before something gets in the way, and I don’t think the Earth has much to do with it.

The terrain of Rigor Mortis vs. the Earth, or just vs. the Earth, being branded anything but definitive Rigor Mortis should be a scarce occasion. It’s something made apparent by the patented groundwork of Mike Scaccia’s jet-fired six-string propulsion system, and is an element so crucial to the band’s sonic composure it’d be a debilitating castration of style should they ever part company. Additionally, Doyle Bright’s mean-spirited death crush surely has its share of fans, including those who found hard times getting over the adios waved by similarly-jawed Bruce Corbitt. Unfortunately, these factors of fan favoritism are kinda put to the test here, for a bunch of the disc’s dozen tracks fall victim to an almost across-the-board deviation from what would normally be their natural environment.

At least five songs motor along with entirely less streamlined gears, likely a premeditated strategy to make room for greater attempts at (showing) technical intricacy, timing ingenuity, songwriting maturity, and other songcraft variables sparked by some growing experimental side of theirs. Nuthin’ wrong with that as long as it coalesces into something that’s at least interesting, yet the latter half of Rigor Mortis vs. the Earth - too long “Sog”, aptly-titled “Dead Fish”, disappointingly represented “Speed Whore” and wordless “Afterbirth of a Midget (S.Y.G.D.P.)” - in addition to harboring some annoyingly newfound appreciation for punk, quickly loses traction as well as seemingly any idea where the gas pedal is for a one or possibly two lane delivery to an area collectively too big for the band to merely meander around. Not good.

While it seems Bright remains the fixed frontman, his fans will find a mere four tracks (aside from a guest guitar spot in “Dead Fish”) for which to cheer him on. Oddly, more mc’phone time goes to bassist Casey Orr, who gives it a decent shot, but with acumen more constricted, clenched, characterless, and colorless than Bright’s, it only further undercuts this album’s viability. It’s a move that from my seat has no real basis.

Partially acoustic “Dying in my Sleep”, tonally and aesthetically characteristic of Sacred Reich’s “Layed to Rest”, serves well those pre-ignition bystanders unfamiliar enough with the quartet that they don’t know to remove hats and jewelry prior to take off. Well, chorus-pounded and hardest anvil, “Mummified”, shows ‘em that error with Mach immediacy. “Throwback”, as well as sounding like a cover, may have been titled in remembrance to a metallic time when its more moderate speed was in fact a terrifying gait, but here amounts to a none-too-exciting breather for the people fetching wayward baseball caps and fedoras, which they promptly lose again when “Contagious Contamination” and the hectically tight “The Rack” again unleash the speed. In fact, the latter may be the one track here to successfully combine the facets of sound the band were straining to achieve. Sending us flying forward again are the brakes, this time so Ramones cover “Psycho Therapy” can clog traffic needlessly and unimportantly, but then it’s, you guessed it, off to the races with rapid back-to-back explosions “City in Fear” and “Asphyxia”. As songs, they hang from the lp’s highest rafters.

In Rigor Mortis’ defense, this migration of style is actually quite the natural occurrence. One band truth is that it’s not unusual for a group to grow bored with their own sound as well as themselves, with feelings of being caged within their own self-perceived creativity and aptitude, real or imagined. As a result, every so often we fans are asked to be patient, stand faithful, and keep an open mind while the cage rattles with self-reinvention. Sometimes it’s worth the wait. Other times they can’t tell the difference between what they think fans want from them and what they want outta themselves. For clues to this dilemma's outcome, look to their discography where it falls completely off the radar for over twenty years.

That said, we’re in luck Rigor Mortis vs. the Earth doesn’t touch the infamy of Cold Lake, or more rationally the middle rung conspicuousness of Refuge Denied/Into the Mirror Black and Dreamweaver/Mourning Has Broken. I’d rather say we’re lucky to find “Mummified”, “City in Fear”, “Contagious Contamination” and “Asphyxia” in this losing battle’s survival tent

Rigor Mortis used to be a marvellously fast and aggressive thrash band of my late teens. Their self-titled debut album was at the time a furiously fast and violent, although a quite badly produced masterpiece. Maybe it would be considered mere aggressive thrash or basic death metal today, but it was angry at the days with 75 miles to the closest decent record store, even with its beautifully idiotic lyrics and goofy overall image. Somehow I believe that many artists in the now heavily overcrowded and lamentably undertalented brutal death metal genre have had it in their collections and regular playlists in the late 80's, even if it rarely gets mentioned as a classic today. The Freaks EP followed the debut with equal ferocity and better production, and certainly still gives a solid kick in the kidneys when needed.

The third work in the series, Rigor Mortis vs The Earth, proves to be a harsh disappointment. The first two tracks, the beautiful instrumental Dying in My Sleep, and angry and excellent Mummified, promise a good ride for the rest of the album. Then the third track, Throwback, pours a bucket of tepid water on the listener's head. It's a truly poor performance. What the hell happened? The fourth track, Contagious Contamination is again a relative masterpiece, followed by the nicely starting but ultimately boring The Rack, before the album hits the bottom mud with a useless Ramones cover, Psychotherapy. The excellent City in Fear and Asphyxia temporarily save the album from a certain spiral of death, before the remaining three songs force it to belly-land in a potatofield. What is wrong with this album? What has happened to the Rigor Mortis I used to know?

A second listening and a peek inside the sleeve reveal the problem: the good stuff is sung by the then-new singer Doyle Bright, while the remaining crap has vocals by the bassist Casey Orr. And he, I'm sorry to say, is not up to the task. He really cannot carry a tune for two yards, and sounds like a teenager trying to growl punk in the throes of a serious voice change of a badly troubled puberty. The only decent song by him is The Rack, and even that one is mostly salvaged by the excellence of the guitar work. The good tracks also contain much better songwriting, as if the band saved the best songs for the new singer. The lyrics throughout the album stay in the traditional Rigor Mortis area of violence, mayhem and intestines, no matter who doing the vocals.

The result is obviously a relative disaster. The traditional Rigor Mortis sound, with the emphasis alternating between the vocals and guitar, and both the barely audible bass and muddled drums staying in the background, means that every time Orr opens his mouth, every problem his voice has immdiately becomes a problem to whoever is listening. Why did they have to do this? How many hours of studio time would it have required to have Bright sing the tracks again? They ended with a divided album of excellent thrash and embarrassing punk-demo-quality songs. Most of the songs by Orr sound like punk of some sort, and probably account for the often mentioned "punk influence" on the album. Scaccia's guitar work, even on the bad tracks, is still phenomenal, but the lousy singing almost makes even it sound smothered, although this could very well be partly psychosomatic after hearing Orr's croaking. The production, while still far from perfect, is miles ahead of the sound of the debut album, but once again leaves bass and drums to the background, although this time they are actually audible.

The math is merciless. You can have the best guitar work in the world, but when you combine it with abysmal vocals and produce the whole so that they share the time available equally, you end up with a mediocre mean value. The one third of the tracks, with Bright's vocals, raise the rating of the album somewhat, but even they cannot work wonders. Fifty percent of this is irritating to listen to, and that brings the album close to the point where it cannot recover itself any more. And all this because of the vocals. That's an achievement in itself.

What should they have done? Well, throwing out the tapes with Orr's vocals on them and replacing them with Bright's would probably have improved the album to somewhere around 80%. After that, kicking out the completely redundant Ramones cover and a few less excellent tracks in the end (Speedwhore, and possibly Sog or Dead Fish) would have brought it up to 90%. But that didn't happen.

Another solution would have been to completely cut out the tracks with Orr singing, keeping the instrumentals. The end result would have been a splendid EP, on par with Freaks or even better. But that didn't happen either.

It would be interesting to know about the circumstances that led Rigor Mortis to do this to their album. There is either a lack of personal quality control or something else that forced them to use Orr's barking as the vocals on all the spoiled tracks. Could it be something like running out of money and/or studio time? Orr's personal ambition? Frustration and desperation in the face of a looming split-up? Distrust towards the new vocalist? Whatever it is, it was a mistake, and somehow might have had something to do with the band's split-up.

The band nowadays has a web page that almost promises a reform of the band. Also, there's a mention of Casey Orr's punk band, The Hellions, that possibly further explains the aforementioned "punk influences". Anyone who knows these guys: please tell them to keep Mr. Orr away from the microphone in case they actually decide to make a new album, unless the aim is to permanently move away from thrash and death and -essentially- their old fan base. Thank you in advance, sir/ma'am.

Now, that's it. I've bashed one of the favourites of my youth. It's time to repent. A penance of no coffee or beer for me for two days might make me redeem myself. D'oh!

Rigor Mortis was never really a top-tier thrash band, but all of their releases to date have been enjoyable. My favorite is this album, which sees the band's punk influences bubbling to the surface, leading to a much looser, more fun feel.

Witness the hardcore-tinged speed metal of "City of Fear" or the mid-tempo proto-groove of "SOG", then cringe at the unnecessary cover of the Ramones' "Psycho Therapy". Despite the more prominent punk feel, there's still plenty of pure thrash to keep the diehards happy: "Mummified" and "Asphyxia" rage just as hard as anything on the debut, for instance. The band balances the punkier stuff with the straight speedier stuff throughout Vs. the Earth.

Vocally, this isn't too dissimilar to their previous work (raspy thrash vocals), although bassist Casey Orr gets more mic time here. Lyrically, the band is still sloshing around in blood and guts with maybe a little more humor present compared to the straight-faced first album. Ironically, though the music has gotten looser here, the sound itself has tightened considerably. The slushy production of the debut has been jettisoned in favor of a crisp, clear sound that allows space for everything to be heard.

All in all, for the speed metal collector or hardcore fan looking to cross over, Vs. the Earth is worth tracking down. It's no Reign in Blood, but it's good entertainment. Great music for jogging or for mowing down joggers with your car.