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August was a brutal month indeed for extreme metal guitarists. First, Dissection founder Jon Nöodveidt took his own life in Stockholm. Then came word that Terrorizer/Lock Up guitarist Jesse Pintado, ex-of Napalm Death, had died at a hospital in Holland, apparently from complications with diabetes.

Both men had seen their share of troubles over the years (see below). And though rather shocking, Nöodveidt’s death was perhaps not nearly as much of a surprise as was Pintado’s, who seemed to be getting his shit together. But that doesn’t make it any less tragic and both should be remembered for the indelible mark they made as part of some of underground metal’s most revolutionary bands.

DISSECTION: The Grisly End

Nödtveidt was found dead Aug. 16 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, thus bringing the bizarre, sordid tale of Sweden’s Dissection to a grisly, yet seemingly inevitable conclusion.

Apparently it was a ritual suicide, as Swedish newpapers reported Nödtveidt’s body was found in his apartment surrounded by a ring of carefully arranged candles. His dedication to Satanism and the obscure Misanthropic Luciferian Order — whose confounding hate-based gospel I can’t even begin to explain — was well documented.

An epitaph of sorts on Dissection’s website offered the following: “As a true Satanist, he led his life in the way he wanted and ended it when he felt that he had fulfilled his self-created destiny. Not everyone will have understanding or acceptance for his personal path in this life and beyond, but all must respect his choice.”

Nödtveidt’s death came two months after he announced Dissection was disbanding just two years after their long-awaited “rebirth,” which yielded one album, Reinkaos (The End Records), a run of 60 concerts and the recently released DVD, Rebirth of Dissection. Two of Dissection’s final performances were planned for New York and Los Angeles in early September, but Nödtveidt was denied entry into the United States as a result of his 1998 murder conviction. The band’s final show was June 24 in Stockholm. Dissection had toured here just once, opening for Morbid Angel following 1995’s black/death metal triumph Storm of the Light’s Bane. Not long after, Nödveidt, was arrested for his involvement in the killing of Josef Ben Meddaour, an Algerian homosexual, in Gothenburg. He served seven years for accessory to murder and firearms charges and joined Emperor’s Bard “Faust” Eithun and Burzum’s Varg Vikernes as underground metal’s most infamous figures.

Prison only seemed to strengthen Nödveidt’s resolve and beliefs, however. He resurrected Dissection with a singular vision and purpose, which he described in an online interview with fans that is posted on the band’s website.

“My goal was to find a line up that would share the same visions as myself in terms of using the music of Dissection as a black magical tool. So, therefore, I only wanted Satanists in the band. ... As the members of Dissection both belong to the cult of Satan-Lucifer and the necrosophic cult of the Lord of Death we have chosen to label our music ‘Anti-Cosmic Metal of Death’ to show the spiritual direction of our work.”

Initially, Bard “Faust” Eithun, who had just been released from prison in Norway for a similar crime, was to have been a part of Dissection’s rebirth. But he was too spooked by Dissection’s “spiritual direction” and bailed.

Nödveidt also spoke about his reasoning for bringing Dissection to a close, which, in retrospect, hinted at what might become of himself as well.

“We are now heading into a new phase, a darker phase, which might reveal the unexpected, for some at least, and for sure a few secrets as well. ... How it will manifest? I’m sure you all will see eventually. Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear might have predicted it. For this is in no way a new path for us, exploring the unknown as always ... yet this time one step further towards the only one goal.

“Since the path we are treading now fast is burning and turning towards an end, I want to take the opportunity to say... this is the end that we long have awaited... an end holding a new beginning. The beginning that in itself might be the inevitable end!”

Nödveidt was 31.

TERRORIZER: Darker Days Indeed

Pintado’s death was especially cruel as he was just getting back into playing music and rejoining the metal community he left with his dismissal from Napalm Death in 2004. He and Morbid Angel drummer Pete Sandoval had resurrected their legendary grindcore band Terrorizer, which released its second album, the hideously ironically titled Darker Days Ahead, Aug. 22, just five days before he passed away. In a July interview, Sandoval was cautiously optimistic about Terrorizer’s immediate future, noting that just what was to come for the band after Darker Days was issued largely depended on the shape Pintado was in. But at that time, things were looking up. “He was heavily involved in alcohol when he was with Napalm Death and he’s still dealing with that and some other shit,” Sandoval said. “But he’s getting better and we don’t want to hurry up and do something just to do something. We want to make sure Jesse is OK and he’s playing right because when we do play.

“When we play, I promise it’s going to be a real treat for the fans of Terrorizer who have waited so long to see us. It’s going to be so heavy.”

Sadly, looks like we’ll never know.

Though he rarely gets the credit he deserved, perhaps because of his reserved personality, Pintado was a key figure in the metal underground of the late ‘80s that birthed grindcore and death metal. He introduced Sandoval to Morbid Angel, joined Napalm Death for their landmark transitional album Harmony Corruption and founded Terrorizer which, despite having one of the oddest legacies in American extreme music, and remain cult heroes to this day.

The “band” actually recorded their landmark debut World Downfall after they had split up in 1989. By then Sandoval had joined Morbid Angel, Pintado was hooking up with Napalm Death, frontman Oscar Garcia was focusing on Nausea and bassist Garvey was on his way to prison for his gang involvement.

Recorded in a matter of days with Morbid Angel’s David Vincent sitting in on bass, World Downfall, with its grim, roughshod, hyper-speed guitars, Sandoval’s rivet-gun drumming and Garcia’s ravenous vocals, went on to become one of the seminal albums of the then-fledgling death metal/grindcore scene thanks in large part to the great word-of-mouth it created in the underground and the growing network of devotees of pioneering English label Earache.

That Terrorizer were no longer a band only added to their legend — as did the growing success of Napalm Death and Morbid Angel. Terrorizer never regrouped to capitalize on the buzz, didn’t play any shows and hardly did anything to publicize the album. But the undeniable strength of the music on this one near-perfect album helped the band stand the test of time and ensure continued interest.

After 17 years, the opportunity finally presented itself for Terrorizer to rise again and do some of the things they were never able to do previously — like record a new album and go on the road.

“This is something that was always at the back of our minds,” said the thickly accented Sandoval on the phone from Florida. “But we never had the time to get together to do anything. When I wasn’t touring or recording with Morbid Angel, Jesse was touring or recording with Napalm. But now that Jesse is out of Napalm, and that gave us the chance we needed to bring Terrorizer back to life.”

Though Garcia declined to join in, Pintado and Sandoval got some songs ready and recruited vocalist Anthony Rezhawk (Resistant Culture), an acquaintance of Pintado’s from the early days of the L.A. underground, as they were readying to record the material. Morbid Angel session guitarist Tony Norman later signed on the play bass when Darker Days Ahead (Century Media), was recorded.

“Once we started getting songs together we couldn’t wait to get them recorded,” Sandoval said. “Anthony didn’t have much time to prepare, but I think he did a good job under a lot of pressure. We didn’t want to just re-create World Downfall, we wanted this album to stand on it own.”

Yet Sandoval admits that capturing lightning in a bottle twice was a nearly impossible task. “Grindcore was so new when we did World Downfall, and we just happened to come up with so many devastating songs for that album, that’s why it became a legend,” he said. “But at the time we did it, we didn’t think didn’t think too much about it because there was nothing going on with the band and not many people knew about us anyway outside of L.A., except for tape traders.”

Indeed at the time, it was the height of hair-band mania and pay-to-play gigs, etc., so Terrorizer mostly played occasional backyard parties and rec center gig. And with so little going on, the lure of more productive positions elsewhere was too much for Sandoval and Pintado to pass up. And given that Morbid Angel and Napalm Death are still going strong, it was probably the right move for both.

Pintado turned 37 in July.

DETHKLOK: Maximum Devastation

On a much lighter note, by now you’ve surely seen, or at least heard of, the Cartoon Network’s new Adult Swim series “Metalocalypse” about the misadventures of mythic Scandinavian/American metallurgists Dethklok. If not, do check it out because while it’s not nearly as funny as it could be, it makes Beavis & Butt-Head, Ren & Stimpy, the Simpsons or any other “edgy” adult-oriented cartoon look like the friggin’ Smurfs.

An episode a couple Sundays ago featured William Murderface playing a bass solo with his dick. Dethklok’s fans are routinely killed en masse – the Dethklok website even features a death tally, which as of Aug. 30 stood at 15,267 — and with spectacularly graphic flesh-peeling, limb-lopping detail. And in a video treatment for one of Dethklok’s songs, the band members themselves are skewered, chopped in half and systematically mutilated in gloriously gory detail. There’s plenty of barfing and stuff too.

Equal parts “Spinal Tap” ridiculousness (the band records an album at the bottom of the ocean for maximum heaviness) and over-the-top “Bad Taste/Dead-Alive”-era Peter Jackson mayhem, the cartoon is as gruesomely realistic as the brutal Japanese anime it emulates. It’s hard to figure that Dethklok co-creator Brendon Small was the brains behind the crude, but ultimately sweet series “Home Movies” about a bunch of precocious grade-schoolers that ran on the Cartoon Network for a couple years. Beneath his innocent facade is one sick bastard.

Perhaps because of that, he’s obviously well-schooled in black/death metal lore — band members boast names like Skwisgaar Skwigelf and Toki Wartooth, and episodes feature things like Nordic Forest Trolls. And guest appearances by the likes of King Diamond, Arch Enemy’s Michael Amott, Nevermore’s Warrel Dane, Steve Smyth and Jeff Loomis and Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield, give the show additional metal cred.

Small’s also no novice when it comes to the music, which so far has been surprisingly adept. While the “songs” have included a commercial, the “Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle” — imagine Six Feet Under singing “Do you folks like coffee, real coffee, from the hills, of Colombia” — and a horrific rendition of “Happy Birthday,” the blast-beats, flailing guitars and Cookie Monster vocals have been spot on. There’s even talk of an album — and if they can come up with more material like the gnarly “Sewn Back Together Wrong,” which actually does sound like a Six Feet Under song, they might be onto something.

To this point— after four episodes — “Metalocalypse” has been more grotesque and outlandish than hilarious, and the dialogue is nearly impossible to comprehend because of the bad fake accents. But with 16 or so more 15-minute episodes to go in the show’s first season hopefully things will work themselves out. “Metalocalypse” is on Sunday nights at 11:45.

VENOM: Immigration Irritation

Speaking of cartoonish metal bands, English black metal comic heroes Venom are playing their first American shows in a decade as we speak, after clearing up some “immigration problems” that postponed what was initially dubbed the “7 Days of Hell” tour here in early August.

The problems were apparently fairly minor as the dates rescheduled for late August/early September. Venom — now founding frontman Cronos, drummer Antton and guitarist Mykvs — even ended up scheduled a few more shows, and rechristened the tour the “American 10 Commandments Tour.” The only real casualty of the delay was original opening act Devildriver, ex-Coal Chamber frontman Dez Fafara’s reasonably decent death metal venture. They have been replaced on all but two dates by Goatwhore (see review below), who probably are a more appropriate choice anyway.

It is Venom’s first appearance in the states since the 1997 Milwaukee Metalfest. During the band’s mid-80s heyday they had the likes of Slayer and Exodus opening for them here.

While the English trio have always owed way more musically and, especially aesthetically, to cheesy circus acts like Kiss than any allegiance with Satan, there’s no denying the band’s tremendous and lasting influence. Their theatrics and outrageousness certainly earned Venom plenty of attention and helped — if nothing else — popularize the term “black metal” and its miscreant ethos in ways that more authentic but far less accessible pioneers like Bathory ever could.

And that legacy has, for the most part, served Venom fairly well for more than two decades, despite a host of lineup changes, squabbling and shitty albums. Indeed, for a stretch, Mantas and drummer Abaddon performed under the Venom banner, with Cronos having been forced out. Now he’s steering the Venom ship and the others are gone.

A couple months back, Venom released a new studio album Metal Black, which aims to capture some of the band’s former sonic magic, but ended up just sounding hokey. More recently, though, the band reissued a gussied up version of 1997’s Cast In Stone (Castle/Sanctuary), which briefly reunited the original “cast” of Venom, Cronos, Mantas and Abaddon. Cast did do a pretty credible job of presenting the “classic” Venom sound and spirit, after years of tumult. A bonus second disc offers rerecorded “updates” of old nuggets like “Die Hard” and “Warhead” and live versions some of the band’s best-known tracks — “Welcome to Hell,” “In Nomine Satanas” and the signature “Black Metal.” But given that the new versions are now 10 years old, they seem quite dated by current standards and lack the raw, genuine charm of the originals. C+

STRAPPING YOUNG LAD: Hello Hiatus, Fuck You Lars Ulrich!

With their magnificent new album The New Black having only been out for six weeks, and a run on the 2006 Ozzfest freshly under their belts, it would seem an odd time for Vancouver-based work-a-holics Strapping Young Lad to be taking a few months off. But with frontman Devin Townsend and his wife expecting their first child, there was little other choice. And truth be told, said the band’s drummer Gene Hoglan, the break couldn’t have come at a better time.

“Honestly, I think Devin was getting ready to drop,” Hoglan said on a balky cellphone from outside of an unusually balmy Seattle the day before Ozzfest kicked off at the end of June. “With all of the work he, himself, has done over the past five years (recording and touring with SYL and the Devin Townsend Band and producing a slew of other albums) I don’t think he could have gone on much longer at that pace without having a breakdown. So the time off will do him a lot of good and will give the rest of chance to get a few things out of our systems as well. It’s for the greater good.”

Bassist Byron Stroud will be touring with his other band, Fear Factory. Hoglan and guitarist Jed Simon will do album with their sideband Tenet and Hoglan will continue to play with his long-running The Almighty Punch Drunk. He figures SYL will get things back up and running early in 2007. And its not as if Hoglan was counting on Ozzfest to suddenly launch Strapping Young Lad’s career to new heights, which would then warrant staying on the road to maintain any newfound popularity.

“I’m fairly certain we are going to stick out like a sore thumb,” he predicted, laughing. “I doubt many people who haven’t heard us will get it, but that’s OK. But I will say this, love us or hate us, I bet people will remember us. If for nothing else than Devin’s hair-do (the infamous bald on top, long on the sides “skullet”).”

SYL did end up scoring some real points on Ozzfest, with the rousing “U Suck” with its “fuck you you fucking fucks” mantra becoming the tour’s unofficial anthem. But Hoglan, an underground fixture since his days with groundbreaking thrashers Dark Angel and stints with Death and Testament, has learned from experience to never get his hopes up to high. “We have no expectations. We did the Sounds of the Underground Tour last year and near as I can tell it didn’t do a damn thing for us. We’ve tried to dumb things down, but we still go over people heads, so whatever.”

Along with the anthemic “U Suck,” The New Black (Century Media), SYL’s fifth studio release, features the equally infectious, and profane, “Fucker,” the irreverent long-time live favorite “Far Beyond Metal” and the fiendishly catchy first single “The Wrong Side.” Yet even so, the band’s intense industrial-metal mishmash, powered by Hoglan’s impeccable carpet-bomb backbeats (he ain’t called “The Atomic Clock” for nothing), and subversive sense of humor is still a far cry from mainstream, something SYL readily admits on “Anti-Product.”

Because of this, SYL are, unfortunately for them, a popular target for illicit downloaders. After all, why risk $14 on a CD you may leery of buying based on rendition of “U Suck” — it’s not like you’re going to hear any the other material on the radio — when you can get it for free off the Internet? It’s a real bone of contention with Hoglan, even though he knows there’s not much anyone can really do about it. “Downloading destroys bands like us,” he said, “bands that are just barely surviving. It was incredible how many times our last album (Alien) was downloaded before it was even released. Something like 40,000 times.

“We work really hard to be as good a band as we can be and to try to make a living at this and it sucks when all the work you’ve done is basically just being given away. So fuck you, Lars Ulrich, wherever you are, for shining the spotlight on it in the first place by crying about Napster and showing everyone how easy it is. You suck.”

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