If you were to cross members of Nekromantix, The Brains, Stellar Corpses, and Rezurex! You’d get a batty mix of Psychobilly punk rock and roll so it’s a bit of luck that just that has waled into the ether and dropped onto RPM HQ. With special guest slots form the likes of Jyrki 69 of The 69 Eyes and Danny B. Harvey! It’s fair to say I was sitting up waiting for the air to be filled with the sound of some pretty heady rock and roll. It’s fair to say I wasn’t disappointed.
As I scan the cover I notice a few surprises in the choice of covers ranging from The Damned and some pretty famouse pop tunes given a good seeing to. With fifteen original tracks and five psychobilly-infused covers including their renditions of Danzig (“Mother”), the king of surf Dick Dale (“Misirlou”), The Damned (“Love Song”), Gloria Jones (“Tainted Love”), Portugal. The Man (“Feel It Still”), and Panic! At The Disco “Say Amen” (Saturday Night). To be fair ‘Tainted Love’ has previously been given the Psychobilly treatment from Living End and this is a very similar version. also doing Danzig isn’t too much of a stretch either seeing as both vocals are very similar. The one that really intrigued me was them taking on the mighty Damned and ‘Love Song’ and to be fair it’s such a monumental tune its never going to touch the original but as far as interpretations go this is decent. Great crunchy guitar with the drums rolling through like a steam train and whilst they remain fairly faithful its a great attempt and Damned fan needn’t look away. As far as ‘Mother’ goes this is cool as I’m not a huge Danzig fan and I guess it would have been too easy to pick a Misfits tune so this is good and once it breaks open I love it.
As for the original tunes I love the groove they get into on ‘Graveyard Girl’ and the guest vocalist work of Jyrki is suitably Gothic and dark How cool would it be if he took a bit of this direction back to 69 Eyes? to be fair twenty tracks is a lot of music to work your way through and whilst the heart is always Rockabilly there is enough variety here and with the inclusion of the covers breaks up the record. Saying that it could have been two albums six months apart but hey what do I know?
If you want a bunch of songs to pick through to try before you buy then look no further than ’50s inspired ‘She Wolf’ or the melodic ‘We Own The Night’ which is like one of the best songs the Misfits never got hold of. ‘Getaway Car’ is poptastic from the acoustic guitars it’s like a modern ‘Leader Of The Pack’ and could easily sell huge in the American alternative market and crossover. ‘The Man’ follows suit I love the dripping reverb on that guitar lick an interesting cover, to say the least.
Fans of the other bands these guys are in will be interested in checking this out as will rockabilly rebels and fans of quality Rock and Roll out looking for a whole lot of music for your money and excellent tunes they are too. Pick it up!
Author: Dom Daley
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