The Diablerie, part 1

I don't remember the first time I heard Disembodied's groudbreaking first album DIABLERIE. All I know is that from the moment the feedback intro comes in, to the acoustic picking at the end, the album is undeniably one of the finest offerings any band could concieve to blur the lines between hardcore and metal.

In my quest for ultimate knowledge of everything Disembodied, I began asking members of the band and those who had dealings with them to contribute stories about the band and their albums, starting off with Diablerie.

The first one to reply was not actually in the band, but is credited in the layout with [lamb's head painting - Spliedt].

I met Spliedt in 1999 when the band that I was in was playing with the band that he was in, New Jersey's NORA. Playing with him a few times over the next couple years, I had no idea that he was an accomplished artist, but you can find his work HERE and HERE.

Sit back and enjoy what will be the first installment of the history of Disembodied and the Diablerie.

Oddly enough the story starts out at an archive warehouse on the
outskirts of New Brunswick. I worked there for about half a year during
the winter of 94 - 95 with a motley crew of dudes from the
hardcore/Punk/whatever-you-want-to-call-it scene. Not to drag his name
through the mud, but it was Ari from Lifetime that helped me get the job
at this place.

So basically what an archive warehouse is is a huge place to store
thousands of boxes of legal material. There are some files that, by law,
hospitals and lawyer offices have to hold on to for a certain number of
years. If these documents overload an office, they send them to an
archive warehouse. So 99.9% of these thousands of boxes were filed with
paperwork of no particular interest to anyone — certainly not to us
— until we accidently found 3 boxes of autopsy reports complete with
slides of the dead people. Yeah!

This was in the days before the days of the internet. Finding fucked-up
crap wasn't as easy as clicking your mouse and this was a hot find, be
it a morbid and depressing one. So naturally I stole a bunch of
slides.

About this time I was getting to know Carl pretty well. I told him (and
everyone really) about these fucked-up slides I stole from work. Upon
seeing them, he felt one in particular would be perfect for the upcoming
release of Disembodied's full-length debuting on his label Ferret
Records (Later changed to Ferret Music).

The picture is fucked-up! So much so that I believe Carl actually toned
it down in Photoshop. I won't go into details of what I remember from
the autopsy report. All you really need to know is; that's a real, dead,
mutilated body on there. At the time, it seemed like a brilliant idea.
In retrospect, I really can't believe we did that. I mean it's
undeniably punk rock, but damn!

But that's not why my name appears in the credits. I believe the line in
question says some to the effect of "Goat head painting by Spliedt."
Those who own the original CD will not find said goat head painting in
layout and here's how it went down. About the same time (if not the same
day) Carl saw the dead people slides, he noticed a painting of a goat
head I did. It was most likely lying on my floor amongst the piles of
crap. It was painted with white gouache (it's like watercolor paint but
heavier and more opaque) on black watercolor paper. He said he'd love to
use it with the Disembodied layout if only it was in color. I happily
offered up to repaint it in full color this time using acrylics. It
turned out pretty bad-ass and gross. It depicted a decapitated, skinned
goat head, hanging in all it's bloody glory.


Carl took the painting and the slide and went to work on the layout. It
almost made it in there! So much so that he bothered to put me in the
credits. But I was saddened to learn that he felt there was no way to
actually make it work. What ended up happening was, he scanned in a 2x2
inch portion of a corner of the painting and blew it up to be used as
the background. Hardly worthy of being credited, Carl simply forgot to
take my name out. To add insult to injury, he lost the painting. I could
have killed him. I've since forgiven Carl obviously, as I ended up in a
band with him for six years, but still.

The painting did get to see the light of day after all. I used the
original black and white version in the layout I did for God Forbid's
debut full length, Reject The Sickness. I used it again in a redesign of
the rerelease of the CD. It also made it's way onto a pretty sweet God
Forbid hoodie. Doc recently asked me to send him all of the art files
for yet another redesign, but I don't know know if the painting was
used. Now that I think about it, I couldn't tell you where that painting
is. I guess it's easier to lose a painting than I gave Carl credit
for.

As far as the redesign of Diablerie goes, I think it turned out great.
Technically speaking, I think it relies a bit much on Photoshop effects,
but I think that's representative of the time it came out. Overall, it's
well done and quite haunting. I think it was also a welcomed departure
from how grotesque the first one was.

As I sit here listening to Diablerie, I'm still stoked that somehow, I
can be associated with this record. To this day, it's still one of the
heaviest albums I ever heard. And there's sordid details of my
involvement of Disembodied's debut full length.