Macabre biography

Chicago, Illinois, USA-based specialists in the field of sick rock, Macabre's chief obsession is with serial killers. The positive response on the fanzine network to their mass murderer-fixated demos demonstrated the degree to which Macabre, who were formed in 1985, tapped into a fascination of the heavy metal underground. During the late 80s, serial killers were becoming the ultimate villains - icons of antisociality - and serial killer T-shirts, magazines and books were doing a brisk trade on the darker fringes of youth culture. In 1987, Macabre released their official debut, the self-financed EP Grim Reality, which featured ditties about such deviants as German cannibal Fritz Haarmann and Harvey Glatman, "the Want Ad killer". Macabre's material often sounds like punk nursery rhymes: serial killer tributes that drip with black humour and kitsch crudity, delivered with frantic speed, minimal polish and a total disregard for any standards of good taste. As their career has progressed, their style has veered away from their more punkish roots to include a few death metal flourishes, but is still decidedly rough. With the original line-up of Dennis The Menace (drums), Corporate Death (vocals, guitar) and Nefarious (bass, vocals) still going strong, Macabre remain a morbid gag of extravagant proportions.

Their own label is, rather aptly, called Decomposed Records, and their most recent album was a 26-song musical biography of Jeffrey Dahmer.

DISCOGRAPHY: Grim Reality mini-album (Macabre 1987)***, Gloom (Vinyl Solutions 1989)***, Sinister Slaughter (Nuclear Blast 1993)***, Dahmer (Hammerheart 2000)**.

Macabre pictures