Welcome to another edition of From My Collection. Hard as it is to believe, another edition of Milwaukee Metal Fest is practically upon us. Instead of packing for four days of metal mayhem in “the Good Land”, here I am typing up this here essay, but for good reason. During MMF’s original run, Chicagoan murder metallers Macabre were a staple, playing the event 12 times according to Setlist.FM. They’ve since become a staple of the Jamey Jasta-curated version as well, returning for their third MMF in a row, and this time gearing up to grace the Eagles Ballroom stage, the largest of MMF’s three stages. To commemorate the occasion, and these unsung death metal pioneers’ 40 year history as a whole, today we go back in time to 1987 and revisit the band’s debut EP, Grim Reality. Get ready for an essay that’ll “thrill you, kill you, and cut out your heart”!
Despite 2025 marking Macabre’s official 40th anniversary, the band’s story goes back even further, beginning in 1981, to be exact. It was that year that guitarist Corporate Death, bassist Nefarious, and drummer Dennis the Menace would form their first band, Labyrinth, with an unnamed vocalist at the helm. Of course, the members hadn’t assumed these pseudonyms yet, and by all accounts were playing a rather standard style of traditional metal in the vein of Priest and Maiden, characteristic of the era. This all changed in 1983, when Corporate Death penned what would go onto become Macabre’s first song, “Ed Gein”.
1983 was a pivotal year in metal history for a plethora of reasons, the biggest being the advent of thrash. Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All proved to be a gamechanger, as did Slayer’s Show No Mercy released right at the year’s end. ’83 also saw the formation of bands who would go onto become key players in the subsequent advent of death metal. Possessed (despite having songs written as far back as 1979), Mantas (who would morph into Death), Ice (who would rebrand themselves first as Heretic, then as Morbid Angel), Master: These are just a few of the death metal titans who claim ’83 as their birth year. Taking this into consideration, it’s not overly surprising that Mr. Death penned “Ed Gein” in the midst of this changing climate.
Come ’85, Labyrinth’s singer left the fold, leaving the remaining terrible three to regroup and rebrand under a moniker much more fitting of the music they were creating, Macabre. The band spent their first couple years honing their craft and playing some infamous shows around the Chicagoland area along the way. By 1987, with all of their aforementioned peers having released at least a demo (and in the case of Possessed and Death, full lengths), it was time for Macabre to strike with their official debut, Shit List (1987). The demo, consisting of five studio cuts and two live cuts, made quite the wave within the underground, resulting in a quick follow up later that year, Grim Reality.
Now I know belittling any release prior to 1989 that isn’t Scream Bloody Gore or Leprosy as “not really death metal” or “more thrash than death” is all the rage amongst know-it-all twenty and thirty-somethings these days. Only in 2025 will releases like Slaughter’s Strappado or Necrophagia’s Season of the Dead be dismissed as “just thrash”. As a twenty-something myself, I’m here to tell you all that these folks aren’t just wrong; they’re stupid. That first wave of demos, EPs, and albums that arrived between 1985 and 1988 are every bit as death metal as what would come after, and Macabre’s Grim Reality is a key player in this original wave.
Grim Reality opens with my favorite Macabre song of all time, “Serial Killer”, and what an opener it is. If any song embodies the Macabre ethos, it’s this one. The lyrics are deranged, and the musicianship is equally deranged. The guitar riffs blur into one another in utter frenzy, while the rhythm section blasts away in a chaotic early grindcore manner. The icing on the cake are Corporate Death’s unforgettable vocals. Far from your conventional Cookie Monster growls that would become par the course for death metal come the ’90s, Corporate Death’s vocals range from shrill high-pitched shrieks to throat-shredding rasps, with only the occasional growl thrown in. It’s these vocals, coupled with the band’s fixation on murder in all its forms, that set them apart from the pack.
“Mr. Albert Fish (Was Children Your Favorite Dish?)” follows, and is the first of a few songs in the Macabre oeuvre touching upon the Gray Man. Similar to “Serial Killer”, “Fish” boasts deadly thrashing verses, but is accentuated by an utterly twisted shout-along chorus. Even in those early days, brutality meant nothing without a catchy hook, and Macabre have managed to craft some of the most memorable, yet messed up in the history of death metal. Side A then closes with “Mass Murder”, which is less a song proper and more an outro. Corporate Death shreds away on the guitar, followed by a classically flavored bass fill from Nefarious, and a blasting drum solo from Dennis the Menace to close us out.
As we flip over to side B, “Son of Sam” kicks things off with pure death metal devastation. The lead riff sounds reminiscent of the deadliest moments on Kreator’s Pleasure to Kill, yet even more murderous and bloodthirsty. And some of you fools will argue to me this is “just thrash”? Find me a Sacred Reich or Death Angel riff from the same era that’s this homicidal and MAYBE I’ll believe you. “Hot Rods to Hell” then takes Macabre’s obsession with death to a new level, shifting the lyrical focus from individual murder to the extinction of mankind as a whole via the greenhouse effect. On this one, the vocals are purely guttural. I’m not sure if it’s Corporate Death’s vocals layered, ran through a pitch-shifter, are all three growling in unison, but holy hell, talk about revolutionary.
Grim Reality closes with the song that started it all for Macabre, “Ed Gein”. A largely midtempo death metal romp, save for the thrashing mid-section, “Ed Gein” is menacing and anthemic, just like “Albert Fish”, and has since become a staple of Macabre’s catalog. With its ultra-graphic lyrics and utterly crushing delivery, I can’t help but ponder how close the initially written 1983 version resembles this here ’87 rendition. Furthermore, do any recordings exist of Labyrinth running through this one? If so, Corporate Death, if you’re reading this, hit me up. Inquiring minds want to know!
For Macabre, Grim Reality was just the beginning of a legacy riddled with infamy and notoriety. Come the ’90s, they’d become further entrenched in the death metal underground, their obsession with true crime occasionally being too much for even the most tried and true death metallists to handle. And yet today, in an age where the types of taboo Macabre sings about is pedaled weekly on ABC’s 20/20, and real death footage can be found with the click of a button, Corporate Death, Nefarious, and Dennis the Menace remain unperturbed. Indeed, this reality is a grim one. Who better to deliver the soundtrack?
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