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Vargskelethor Joel

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Joel Johansson
Born
Joel Johansson[1][a]

(1993-08-29) 29 August 1993 (age 32)[3]
Sweden
Other namesVargskelethor Joel, Vargskelethor
Occupations
  • Streamer
  • musician
Websitevargskelethor.me

Joel Johansson (born 29 August 1993), known online as Vargskelethor Joel, or just Vargskelethor, is a Swedish live streamer and musician. He co-founded thrash metal band Scythelord In 2011, and released their debut album, Toxic Minds in 2016. He started making comedic heavy metal tracks under his pseudonym in 2014. Johansson is best known for being a member of the former online content creator collective Vinesauce.

Music career

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2011–present: Scythelord

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In 2011, he co-founded with Floridian collaborator Frank Hernandez the thrash metal band Scythelord.[3] In 2016, Johansson and Hernandez, released their debut album, Toxic Minds.[4] Johansson would be the guitarist and vocalist.[5] In October 2018, Toilet Ov Hell listed Scythelord's song "Speed Metal War" for their "Riff Of The Week".[6] In 2019 Scythelord released the EP, Asclepius.[7] Invisible Oranges said that Asclepius had a "dynamic range and the breadth of its emotional arc feels much more substantial."[7] In 2021, Their second album, Earth Boiling Dystopia, would be released.[1][5] In 2025, Scythelord released a cover version of the song "The Crippler" by the German thrash metal band Sodom. This resulted in Johansson and Hernandez meeting Sodom in an in-person meetup. In a YouTube video by Johansson in December 2024, he would document his and Hernandez's trip to the Hell's Heroes VI festival in Houston.[5] Scythelord are planing to release an upcoming EP, Masters of the Scythe.[5]

2014–present: Solo work

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In October 2014, Johansson made his debut with the song "Pineapples do not belong on a pizza".[3] Johansson, under his pseudonym, Vargskelethor, released a trilogy of heavy metal albums titled Skeleton Metal between 2014 and 2019. Skeleton Metal was primarily composed of short, skeleton-themed metal, comedy tracks.[1] On 4 April 2023, Vargskelethor released a sequel to the trilogy, Skeleton Metal X.[8]

The Progressive Subway would call the recording and production quality "fairly rough, although Joel's musical talent improved and his song writing grew noticeably more ambitious by the end of the trilogy."[1] Garret Roberts of RMU Sentry Media called the second album in the trilogy "Joel us[ing] his metal talents to perform goofy songs about skeletons while offering genuinely good metal."[9] Marc Desgagné of Metal Universe criticized the production of Skeleton Metal X for being "very disjointed", with some of the songs having a "big difference" in quality in between tracks. Overall, Desgagné rated the album a 7.5/10.[8]

Vinesauce

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Main article: Vinesauce

Johansson is best known for being a member of the former online content creator collective Vinesauce.[1][2][5][8] Johansson's impact on the channel would be popularizing Internet memes, such as The Daily Dot citing Joel's RollerCoaster Tycoon videos as bringing various memes to a wider audience.[10]

In 2021, a Reddit user named "Sparta123" wrote a thread on r/tipofmyjoystick describing a farming game akin to Harvest Moon that they tried to recall. This would start a 5 year mystery of rumors that spread to various social media communities, attempting to investigate the existence of the farming game. It was later identified by Sparta123, that it originated from 2015 clip from one of Joel's streams playing the game Global Defense Force.[2][11] In 2021, Johansson apologized in a Twitch stream for the time that users had wasted in searching for a non-existent game.[11][12][13]

Discography

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The following released are or were available on Johansson's Bandcamp page:[‡ 2][‡ 3]

With Scythelord

As Vargskelethor

Albums and EPs
Singles

Notes

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  1. ^ Sources differ on his middle name.[2][‡ 1]

References

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  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Callum (2021-07-19). "Review: Scythelord - Earth Boiling Dystopia". The Progressive Subway. Retrieved 2026-01-17.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c Lucia (2022-10-31). "The Mystery Of "That Evil Farming Game," Solved". The Ghost In My Machine. Retrieved 2026-01-19.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c "VARGSKELETHOR". MetalMusicArchives.com. Archived from the original on 2025-06-20. Retrieved 2026-01-17.
  4. ^ Tau, Michael (2022). Extreme music: silence to noise and everything in between. Port Townsend, WA: Feral House. ISBN 978-1-62731-129-8.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Scythelord release cover of Sodom's "The Crippler"". Lambgoat. January 14, 2025.
  6. ^ "Riff Of The Week: Speed Edition". The Toilet Ov Hell. 2018-10-06. Retrieved 2026-03-21.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b Hickman, Langdon. "From Above (and Below): Five Easily Missed Death Metal Bangers from Last Year". Invisible Oranges - The Metal Blog. Retrieved 2026-01-18.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Vargskelethor - Skeleton Metal X (2023)". MetalUniverse.net (in Canadian French). Retrieved 2026-01-18.
  9. ^ Roberts, Garret. "Alternative Halloween music". RMU Sentry Media. Retrieved 2026-01-18.
  10. ^ "The sexy, sloppy history of 'nut' and 'succ'". The Daily Dot. 2016-08-26. Archived from the original on 2016-08-27. Retrieved 2026-01-17.
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b Albuerne, José A. Mateo (2023-04-07). "El siniestro juego del granjero asesino que tuvo en jaque a Reddit durante más de cinco años". 3DJuegos (in Spanish). Retrieved 2026-01-19.
  12. ^ Leon, Radhamely De (2021-06-21). "The 5-Year Mystery of the 'Evil Farming Game' Has Been Solved". VICE. Retrieved 2026-01-17.
  13. ^ Notis, Ari (2021-06-15). "Mysterious 'Evil Farming Game' Never Actually Existed". Kotaku. Retrieved 2026-01-17.

Primary sources

In the text, these references are preceded by a double dagger (‡):

  1. ^ Scythelord by Scythelord on Apple Music, 2016-12-11, retrieved 2026-04-15
  2. ^ "Music – Vargskelethor". Retrieved 14 April 2026 – via Bandcamp.
  3. ^ "Music – Vargskelethor". Archived from the original on 2 March 2016 – via Bandcamp.
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