Line #62 Music/Ghoul


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/671_photo.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: ''"We'll pickle your brains in a jelly jar!"'']]
3
4	Ghoul is a very theatrical thrash/death metal band from Oakland, California. They are an AnonymousBand who claim to be four mutants hailing from the land of [[{{Uberwald}} Creepsylvania]], a country in Eastern Europe that lives up to every horror trope known to man. The band play old school style thrash metal with elements of death metal, grindcore, and occasionally surf rock and doom metal, and write about the land of Creepsylvania and their lives as ghouls, as they play heavy metal, mosh, and scare people. Over the course of their discography, they introduce a recurring cast of characters and even a sort of ongoing storyline, that gleefully embraces every horror and metal trope in the book and turns it up to eleven.
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6	Several members of the band also perform in the group Impaled, with Sean and Ross in particular having sung and played their respective instruments on all albums (or in Ross's case, all but the first two Ghoul records) from both groups. They are fairly similar stylistically, with the main difference being their more straightforward DeathMetal sound as opposed to GenreBusting death/thrash. Ross also performs bass and vocals in Music/{{Exhumed}}, having been a member during the making of their first album before leaving in 1999 and rejoining in 2016 after being brought in for the rerecording of ''Gore Metal'' a year prior.
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8	The band members:
9	* Cremator (Ross Sewage) - Vocals, bass
10	* Digestor (Sean "Bloodbath" [=McGrath=]) - Vocals, guitar
11	* Dissector (Peter Svoboda) - Vocals, guitar
12	* Fermentor (Peijman Kouretchian) - Vocals, drums
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14	Albums:
15	* ''We Came for the Dead!!!'' (2002)
16	* ''Maniaxe'' (2003)
17	* ''Splatterthrash'' (2006)
18	* ''Transmission Zero'' (2011)
19	* ''Intermediate Level Hardcore'' (EP) (2013)
20	* ''Hang Ten'' (EP) (2014)
21	* ''Dungeon Bastards'' (2016)
22
23	!!Ghoul provides examples of:
24	* AffectionateParody: Of classic metal and horror tropes.
25	* AfterTheEnd: Their cover of "What a Wonderful World" is about this.
26	* AlbumIntroTrack: "Into the Catacombs" on ''Splatterthrash'', "The Lunatic Hour" on ''Transmission Zero'', "The Midnight Ride of the Cannibals MC" on ''Hang Ten'', and "Ghetto Blasters" on ''Dungeon Bastards.''
27	* AllBikersAreHellsAngels: The Cannibals MC, led by the monstrous Kreeg.
28	* AllThereInTheManual: A lot of additional information, including the history of Creepsylvania and the backstories of the various characters, can be found on [[http://www.creepsylvania.com/ the band's website]].
29	* AncientConspiracy: According to his VillainSong, the Basilisk is responsible for most of human history.
30	* AnonymousBand: Sort of. They're intended to be secret, but we know that Cremator and Digestor also play in Impaled.
31	* ArtifactOfDoom: The Crystal Skull. Among other things, it turns a nerd into the Gore Boar and is worshiped by a cult. [[MundaneUtility Ghoul use it to crack open walnuts]].
32	* AxCrazy: The band themselves usually come across as this.
33	* BackFromTheDead: After being destroyed at the end of ''Maniaxe'', Killbot is resurrected by a cult... [[spoiler: using the brain of Creator/WaltDisney]].
34	* BadassBoast:
35	** Combined with AlbumTitleDrop; "We came here to conquer, we came here to rule, we came here to ''splatterthrash!''"
36	** Every single line in "Kreeg".
37	--> "I bleed gasoline and I piss alcohol\
38	I got a cobra for a cock and some wrought iron balls\
39	I got your name tattooed and you better believe\
40	I'm gonna cross that sucker or my name ain't Kreeg"
41	* BadassCrew: Ghoul themselves.
42	* BigBad: The Grand Basilisk for ''Transmission Zero'', Commandant Dobrunkum for ''Dungeon Bastards.''
43	* BigGood: Baron Samedi from ''Splatterthrash'' onwards.
44	* BlackComedy: Almost all of their lyrics.
45	* ComedicSociopathy: The band engage in this all the time.
46	* ConceptAlbum: All of them, though ''Transmission Zero'' and ''Dungeon Bastards'' are the only ones with a continuous story to them.
47	* CoverAlbum: ''Intermediate Level Hardcore'' features covers of various hardcore punk songs.
48	* CoverVersion: They've covered "Skull Beneath the Skin" by Music/{{Megadeth}}, "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong, and numerous hardcore punk songs on the ''Intermediate Level Hardcore'' EP.
49	* TheCoverChangesTheMeaning: Their version of "What a Wonderful World" is about a nuclear holocaust.
50	* DarkAndTroubledPast: "The Mark of Voodoo" is this for Baron Samedi.
51	* ADayInTheLimelight: ''Hang Ten'' focuses on the Cannibals MC.
52	* DeathMetal: Of the death/thrash variety, to be exact.
53	* DeathSeeker: Cursed with immortality in his undeath, Baron Samedi only wants to die.
54	* DroppedABridgeOnHim: According to "Roadkill", the Mutant Mutilator was killed and eaten by the band after his presence on the tour bus got annoying.
55	* DumbAndDrummer: According to his bio on the official website, Fermentor has a ''single digit'' IQ.
56	* EldritchAbomination: The monstrous Abominox is one made out of sewage.
57	* EmbarrassingLastName: The Mutant Mutilator's human name is Billy ''Spungbein''.
58	* EpicInstrumentalOpener: "Into the Catacombs" on ''Splatterthrash'' and "The Lunatic Hour" on ''Transmission Zero''.
59	* EpicRocking: "Morning of the Mezmetron" is 8 minutes long.
60	* EvilGloating: Commandant Dobrunkum really enjoys this. "Word Is Law" is almost nothing but this.
61	--> ''"Flee from my legions, pitiful fools!''
62	-->''There is nowhere to hide now! This is the end of Ghoul!"''
63	* EvilIsHammy: Dobrunkum, who's essentially a Saturday morning cartoon villain.
64	* EvilOverlord: Commandant Dobrunkum on ''Dungeon Bastards''.
65	* EvilVersusEvil: The band defeat many other villains in the course of their antics.
66	* FrenchJerk: Cremator (the character, not the actual band member) is from France, and is sung with a somewhat exaggerated French accent.
67	* GargleBlaster: "Rot gut", the national beverage of Creepsylvania.
68	* GenreBusting: They mix death metal, thrash metal, goregrind, surf rock, and punk rock into a package that is very accessible yet defies easy classification.
69	* GenreShift: "The End?" and "Psychoplasm" are instrumental surf rock.
70	* {{Gorn}}: Only natural for a death metal band. Almost every song has Ghoul slaughter someone in an immensely ridiculous fashion.
71	* HarshVocals: They mostly use Carcass-type death growls, though clean vocals show up every now and then.
72	* HeavyMeta: Lots of songs are about how the band plays true metal and kills posers.
73	* HeroAntagonist: The Ghoul Hunter, though [[HarmlessVillain he doesn't really do much]].
74	* ImAHumanitarian: Ghoul love eating people, and in "Blood Feast" they go on a drug fueled rampage through Creepsylvania and devour its hapless citizens.
75	* {{Instrumentals}}: "The End?", "Into the Catacombs", "Psychoplasm", "The Lunatic Hour", all of ''Hang Ten'' except for "Kreeg", and "Guitarmageddon" (unless you count movie samples as vocals).
76	* KayfabeMusic: Along with Music/{{GWAR}} (who they have toured with), one of the leading examples in metal today.
77	* MalevolentMaskedMan: The band all have burlap sacks on their heads.
78	* MushroomSamba: "Brain Jerk" is about the band getting high on Baron Samedi's tsombi powder and having cosmic hallucinations.
79	* ANaziByAnyOtherName: Commandant Dobrunkum.
80	* NumberOfTheBeast: Baron Samedi was born in the year 1666.
81	* OurGhoulsAreCreepier: They appear to be of the Mutant Ghoul type.
82	* ProtestSong: "Life of the Living Dead" and "Wall of Death".
83	* RedShirtArmy: "Ghoulunatics" is about this.
84	--> ''"WE ARE GHOULUNATICS!''
85	--> ''An army of losers, the worst of the worst''
86	--> ''WE ARE GHOULUNATICS!''
87	--> ''They'll march to our orders, and buy all our merch"''
88	* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: "Mutant Mutilator" has a nerd who gets bullied every day make contact with the Crystal Skull and mutate into the Gore Boar, after which he exacts bloody retribution on his tormentors.
89	* RoboticPsychopath: Killbot, of course.
90	* SelfDeprecation: The band portray themselves as being incredibly stupid in their lyrics.
91	* SomethingBlues: "Gutbucket Blues".
92	* SpokenWordInMusic: Typically done with movie samples, though they sometimes include voice acting for the characters in the song as well. "Ghoul Hunter" in particular makes heavy use of this, being an extended monologue from the title character.
93	* TakeThat: "Pleasant Screams/Forbidden Crypts" is about Ghoul slaughtering a stereotypical Norwegian black metal band.
94	** The Mutant Mutilator's bio on the website explicitly mentions that he will kill you if you listen to Music/CradleOfFilth.
95	** "Numbskull" mentions the band destroying merch for Unique Leader Records, a tech death/djent label.
96	* ThrashMetal: Their primary genre.
97	* {{Uberwald}}: Creepsylvania takes this to ridiculous extremes. Among other things, it's a military dictatorship that regularly gets terrorized by monsters and is enclosed by a giant cemetery.
98	* TheUnintelligible: Fermentor's vocals are a barely intelligible gurgle.
99	* VillainProtagonist: Ghoul are a bunch of mutant cannibals who kill people for fun.
100	* VillainSong: "Morning of the Mezmetron" for the Basilisk, "Word Is Law" and part of "Bringer of War" for Dobrunkum, "Kreeg" for Kreeg.
101	* VocalTagTeam: Digestor and Cremator handle most of the vocals, with occasional vocals from Fermentor or gang shouts thrown in.
102	* WickedWitch: The swamp witch, who lives in a shack in the bog and breeds giant maggots.
103	* WitchDoctor: Baron Samedi of course.
104	* TheWorfEffect: Several songs have Ghoul getting their asses kicked, though they always manage to bounce back.
105	** Kreeg gets beheaded by Dobrunkum in ''Dungeon Bastards'', but is kept alive to order the Cannibals around. Ghoul then kill him and use the remaining Cannibals as RedShirts.

Context Music / Ghoul