Vim Fuego Ho, ho, fuck...

Yep, it’s Christmas time, so the world’s most (only?) Christmassy death metal band Coffin Fuck have made their annual trip to the studio somewhere near their home base of Hopatcong, New Jersey. COVID played the Grinch in 2020, the first time in a decade a Coffin Fuck Christmas single didn’t eventuate, so the three lads in their silly sweaters are making up for lost time this year.

But something has changed.

Yes, it’s the usual three self-professed dorks mangling a Christmas song in a so-bad-it’s-good completely unproduced metal manner. Yes, the lyrics are mostly inappropriate and silly. And yes, the artwork to this year’s offering “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree” looks to have been hand drawn using Microsoft Paint.

But therein lies a clue: there’s a rough hand-rendered version of the most famous image in black metal history. No, not Dead’s splattery “excuse the mess” farewell. No, no! Not Count Grishnakh posing with the over-sized butter knife. The OTHER most famous image from black metal. You know, Abbath and Demonaz in full battle dress and badger make-up ready to shovel snow with their guitars from the cover of “Battles in the North”.

Yep, Coffin Fuck have passed over to the dark side. This year’s Christmas single is... black metal!

And actually, it’s not half bad. Well OK, it is pretty bad, but that’s the point. It’s standard-ish black metal with fast, reedy sounding guitars, and blasts and snare drum flurries like you’d expect, but it’s the funny little foibles which make Coffin Fuck such fun. The tuneless vocal tuning at the start of the song. The clunky solo mid-song. The stupid lyrics – “You will get a detrimental feeling when you hear/heathens screaming, worship Santa” and “Have a Misanthropic day/Everyone glaring evilly/In the most trve nekro way”.

Yep, it’s dumb as fuck, but that’s why it’s fun. Merry Antichrist-mas!

Vim Fuego Short and anything but sweet, this is 2018's Christmas offering from Coffin Fuck. This is "Silent Night" as you have never heard it before.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the composition of "Silent Night". The words had been written in 1816 by Father Joseph Mohr, which schoolmaster and organist Franz Xaver Gruber put to the now famous melody two years later. The original German version is a song of beauty and contemplative charm.

And then two centuries later, Coffin Fuck violated it's corpse.

If you've never heard these guys before, here's a quick description: imagine lo-fi home recorded death metal which rips off Christmas tunes and adds silly comic book violence death-growled lyrics, done by three guys wearing stupid Christmas sweaters. The music isn't very good, but it's fine for a bit of a giggle at Christmas.

The joke would wear thin if Coffin Fuck ever got serious and released more than just a Christmas single a year, as they have done for almost a decade, but it's only once a year, it's mercifully short, and it's a tradition which I want to see continue.

And extra kudos to the Coffin Fuckers... er... lads from Coffin Fuck for not falling back on the obvious "Silent night, violent night" rhyme!

Vim Fuego It must be Christmas. All the signs are there. The shops are full of people emptying their wallets on junk which seems life-affirmingly important today, but will be forgotten or broken by New Year. All the good TV programs have done their dash for the year, and there are endless repeats of pointless drivel in their place. The roads are infested with homicidal maniacs intent on causing vehicular devastation. And Coffin Fuck has dropped yet another Christmas single.

For more than a decade, this New Jersey three piece have been churning out an annual dose of death metal yuletide fare. Past offerings have included the already irreverent “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”, “Deck The Halls”, “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”, and “Jingle Bells”.* This year’s mangled melody? “The 12 Days of Christmas”.

It starts with a creepy sample about a demonic Santa who’s out to punish naughty children of all ages. “You see Santy Claus tonight boy, you better run, you better run for your life!”

And then in rumbles the music. The music? Well, it vaguely resembles the actual song in question, with the addition of blast beats, double kick drums, guttural vocals, guitar squeals, and a breakdown every time Mandroid gargles “Five golden rings”. It’s never going to win awards for originality or quality of composition, but hey, what are you really expecting from a death metal version of a Christmas song?

Coffin Fuck should raise a smile from all but the most jaded death metal fans, and there is always the entertaining look of horror on your Granny’s face if you can slip this in among the more traditional Christmas carols.

*On a side note, check out the lyrics to “Jingle Bells”. The song is not actually a Christmas song at all!