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CIRITH UNGOL |
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But who were these Cirith-y Ungols, and just how did they forge their unbreakable sonic steel? Well, the story actually stretches back to 1972, when founding members Greg Lindstrom (guitar), Jerry Fogle (more guitar) and Robert Garven (drums) left their Ventura, California high school cover band Titanic (which, by the way boasted an Angry Samoan in it’s ranks) because they hated the fuckin’ Beatles, and wanted to ‘go heavy’. They developed their chops by learning Budgie songs, and when you spend most of the 70’s playing “Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman”, you are bound to miss punk rock completely. And Cirith did. By 1979, they had finally gotten around to
recording some demos, and along the way, wiry Rob Halford lookalike Tim
Baker showed up to screech over ‘em. Their sound was, for the time, as
strange as metal could get, and they began to develop a local following of
proto-doomhounds, dopers, and acid-eaters. In 1980, they released their
first album, the turgid, woefully under-produced “Frost and Fire”
on the tiny Liquid Flame label. Nothing happened, of course,
because it was 1980, and tiny, independent record labels didn’t really
exist. It was a goof, and they were selling the thing out of their cars. I
didn’t know ‘em then, nobody did. Luckily, Metal Blade picked them
up a year later, and the fledgling all-metal superlabel became their home
for the rest of their brief career. And it was all skeleton kings and
albino warlords from there. |
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| Cirith Ungol were audibly and visibly ten years older than all the flash metal wastrels in the exploding LA glam-slam scene, but where else were they gonna go? While they would occasionally land in the middle of a speed/thrash/black metal gutpile (a Slayer or Metallica show, say), mostly, the poor creaky bastards were subjected to the bitter humiliation of opening for Ratt or Motley Crue or some other hotshot groupie-baiting spandex act on the Strip. I can only imagine the horror and panic that would come over the Peroxide blowjob girls pressed against the stage when Cirith would tear into the hysterical death-doom grunt of “Finger of Scorn”. But anyway, despite being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Cirith’s bubbling cauldron of fantasy themes (after “Frost and Fire”, all of Cirith Ungol’s lyrics were based on sci-fi fantasy author Michael |
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Moorcock’s books), over-the-top vocals,
pseudo-progressive doom metal, and good ol’ 70’s hard rock crunch
developed a hardcore cult of ‘true metal’ fans, particularly in Europe,
where they still worship these guys, almost twenty years after they broke
up.
It’s a whole thing over there, this ‘true metal’ gag. Just ask Manowar. Europe turned them into the most unlikely multi-millionaires in all of rock n’ roll. Well, besides Limp Bizkit, maybe. At any rate, Cirith released another two official albums (King of the Dead, 1984; One Foot in Hell, 1986) and one where they sorta half-assed it (Paradise Lost, 1991, which featured the singer, the drummer, and a buncha new dudes), before fizzling out. They left behind some classically bizarre 80’s metal, some awesome albums covers, and of course, Tim Baker’s maniacal vocals. Baker sounded exactly like Axl Rose whenever Axl would aim for the highest register possible and screech like a cat with a firecracker in it’s ass, and if you’ve heard him once, you’ll never forget it. Trust me on that one. Cirith were doomed from the start, really, but they’re much more appreciated in death than they were in life, so don’t weep too hard for them. There’s tribute albums and tribute acts and tribute websites all over Europe, and all their albums were reissued on CD by Metal Blade in 1999. Do they really merit all this post-mortem hoopla, though? Hard to say. Cirith Ungol’s silly wizard metal has not aged particularly well; it sounds like a scratchy old Edison cylinder in comparison to the Pro-tool nu-death bands that define ‘epic’ metal these days. But that’s probably a big part of their lasting appeal. All I know is that they really helped me out back in the day, because I coulda kept listening to Cirith Ungol, or I could’ve started listening to the Stooges. Because lord knows, you couldn’t do both back then. If I had stuck with Cirith post 1984, I would probably have started reading the same goofy books they did, and I would probably still live with my parents now, and spend a lot of time in, like, chat rooms. Sure, I would’ve avoided all the years and tears fulla booze, rehabs, abortions, evictions, crashed-cars and ruined friendships, but…fuck, maybe I didn’t make the right choice. Too late now, though. Long live Iggy and the Stooges! What was I talking about? Oh yeah, Cirith Ungol. listen to this crazy shit, muthas. Cirith Ungol - Death of the Sun _________________________________________________________________________________________ -Sleazegrinder |
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Cirith Ungol was one of the most gloriously
ridiculous bands of the flash metal era. You can’t even say their name out
loud without it provoking SOME sort of reaction, whether it be a
dismissive snigger or a black bolt of hell-lightning shooting outta the
sky and blowing your front yard into rubble. Cirith Ungol have magic,
Jack. Weird magic. Back in the heavy metal daze, there really
wasn’t any argument about it – if you liked metal, you liked Cirith,
because you just couldn’t find a band more aggressively metal in all of
LA, New York, or Scandinavia combined. Cirith were FREAKISHLY
metal. They sounded like ancient gods rising from a long, fitful slumber,
full of anger and pride and thirsty for beer, blood and vengeance. They
had skulls with glowing red eyes on their amplifiers, and their drummer
had cymbals that shot fire in the air. Their leather-lunged lead singer
screamed like he was being eaten by a shark, ALL THE TIME. Every
single song was about some dumb fantasy world, with goblins and ogres and
Hellfrost and giant black machines that run on the souls of elves. Shit
like that. Cirith Ungol was a crazed, delirious adolescent fantasy brought
to lunatic heights with volume, sweat, leather, and moldy 70’s hard rock
riffs. And swords! 