Shirt Stains: Slam, Bam, No Thank You, Ma’am

March 18, 2016

5674

102

Slam Slam Bigelow. Slammy Sosa. Son Of Slam. Slam Neely. Slam Newton. Slamson and Delilah. Slam Grier. Slam Adams. Kirk Slamden. Slambled eggs. Green Eggs and Slam. Slameroon. NBA Slam. Space Slam. Strawberry Slam. Golden Slams cereal. Slamwich. Slam of God. Hoover Slam. John Slamm. Abraslam Lincoln. New England slam chowder. The whole point of this is to avoid having to describe slamming death metal. I don’t want to have to look it up and try to parse out exactly what makes it different from other death metal genres. Let’s just say that slam metal is “a thing”. It’s enough of a “thing” for bad merchandise to be made and we should thank all the lil slambonis for making it happen.

Note: Not all of these bands may fall neatly under the vague, amorphous blob of a subgenre that is “slamming death metal”. We here at Toilet Ov Hell deeply apologize if any of the bands mentioned are really “pigsqueal gore death metal” “power-slopping death crotch” or “blackened cajun chicken death metal”. Someone Call The Slambulance!

Beneath – Above, Beyond, Between And In Every Crack And Orifice

Beneath are an Icelandic death metal band on Unique Leader Records. Here’s one of their songs in case you were curious. It’s always cool when a band manages to gain exposure outside of their home country, particularly one that doesn’t always produce a lot of well-known metal. It’s good for the genre and it’s good for their country’s scene. What doesn’t help is having a t-shirt look like a piece of evidence in the trial of a sociopath.

I’m not sure what’s going on with this design, but it looks like a seder at Eli Roth’s house. We’ve got some sort of goat/cthulhu skull wearing the least-fashionable pope hat this side of the inquistion. The giant eye doesn’t look mean or intimidating. It just looks like it’s had a really long day at the office and just wants to get through rush-hour traffic to make it home in time to catch the game. Either that or it just took a bite of strawberry cheesecake and it looooooooooooves strawberry cheesecake. “Ugh, it’s so bad, but it’s sooooo goooood. It’s going straight to my retina!”

This is all to draw attention away from the weird tentacles coming out of the hat and the ancient rune graffiti. Are those more tentacles behind it or is this skull-creature thing resting on a pile of spaghetti? Throw a little Pylsusinnep on it and you’ll be fine. Just ignore the blood pouring out of it’s nether-regions. That’s, um, traditional Icelandic tomato sauce. Yeah… that’s it… and those aren’t skulls at the top. Those are Icelandic onions. Eat up before it gets cold and possesses you!

Dragging Entrails – Mr. Slamborine Man

Dragging Entrails are a Norweigian slam metal band. I can say they’re “slam” with confidence because they say so right on their shirt. It may not be accurate to the slam experts out there (let’s call them “slamspurts” and laugh behind their backs), but it sure is helpful! As with a lot of these bands, DE’s shirt goes for the gore and hard-to-read text with gusto. I mean, you just have to have those things when you’ve got song titles like “Anal Fistula Perversion,” “Murderous Incestual Necrophilia,” and “Slamdozer”. Hahaha, really? Slamdozer? That’s adorable!

I’m sure Dragging Entrails were trying to go for the “br00tal n’ sp00ky” theme with the front of the shirt, but it just looks like a concept sketch for a bad horror movie that will never be made. It’s not good enough for a Tales From The Crypt rip-off comic. Are those zombies supposed to be doctors? I’m pretty sure they’re violating their Hippocratic oath with all the dismembering and flesh-eating. They’re going to lose their license. Tsk tsk.

The back of this wearable red flag implores us to “DEFEND SLAM”. Judging by the awful front of the shirt, slam probably needs all the defense it can get. Some in the ToH Facebook group speculated that the gun is from a video game, but since I don’t know which one, I’ll just say that it needs a some brass knuckles on it if we should be taking it seriously. I mean, do you want to defend slam or not? The symbols surrounding the gun unfortunately do not stand for Wacky World of Straight Edge. It stands for Slam Crew World Wide. They’re probably coming to the edge of a pit near you.

Dragging Entrails – Granny Love

This may be a first for Shirt Stains. I don’t think I’ve ever done two band’s shirts in the same column. Sure, bands with a penchant for garbage merch like Pantera and Atilla have been in more than one column, but not the same. Dragging Entrails are just that special. And when I say special, I mean they’re not allowed near anything flammable and must be accompanied by a court-appointed aid at all times. This shirt somehow made it past the “funny when we were all stoned in your basement” stage, and we’re all worse because of it.

This shirt eats by itself in the lunchroom. This shirt crashes into your parked car and leaves a note that says “Megalolz”. This shirt has a GoFundMe page so it can buy a samurai sword. This shirt thinks bathing is for “pleebs”. This shirt catfishes itself. This shirt has been rejected by eHarmony, OKCupid, Farmers Only, Tinder, Match, Our Time, Beautiful People, Hot or Not, and Juggalo Fuckspace. This shirt’s favorite comedy is Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer. This shirt’s favorite Girl Scout Cookie is a double bacon cheeseburger.

Waking The Cadaver – Slam Ass

I’ll always associate New Jersey’s Waking The Cadaver with Myspace as that’s where they first came to my attention. Ah, those were the days when a band could spend hours adding every single person on the site and amass an incredible number of fans. I probably listened to them for about 20 seconds before giving them the old “nopenopenope” and went back to looking for hot scene chicks in my area. Like I said, good times.

The front of this shirt isn’t bad at all, but I don’t think it’s right for this type of band. If this belonged to a d-beat band or maybe a political thrash band from the 80’s, I think it would work a lot better. Like, it should be in a Judge Dredd comic. My one critique is that box that the artwork is in isn’t even. They had to give a little extra room for the disembodied fist to fit. Not a big deal, just a small detail that could have been easily fixed. That’s not why this is in Shirt Stains, thought. It’s the back.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! I hope that wasn’t intentional because that makes it funnier. “I CAUGHT YOUR ASS TALKING SHIT. – LUMPED UP” That’s some Shakespearean stuff right there. Does this mean that Waking the Cadaver caught a giant butt in the wild with nets and traps? Was the giant butt saying all sorts of nasty things hence the “talking shit”? Or does that mean when a giant wild butt talks, doo-doo flies out and it’s all lumpy? I mean, that would make sense, wouldn’t it? I know I’m probably putting too much thought into this, but it’s far more entertaining to go off on a mental adventure than just assuming that the band put some doofy lyrics on a shirt.