l guess I like classic horror (thereby excluding all torture porn/slasher shit or mainstream random family haunted by irrelevant mess with added obvious creepy kid cookie-cutter flicks.) From serious, scary weirdshit to big bubblegum and candyfloss shlock outings. Particularly the latter though. Written, film, comic, music; whatever the media, classic horror and weird fiction can do it for me. So a band called The Lurking Corpses on everyone’s favourite purveyors of rowdy noise Hell’s Headbangers was simply beckoning to me with skeletal fingers and vitamin-free milkshakes and popcorn.
They’ve been around a while too. This is their fourth full length, though they appear to have been waiting six years for the stars to be right again since their last sojourn above the graveyard soil, and they rattle forth with a blend of the obvious (Misfits/Samhain, thrash, metal, punk, Americana), the not so obvious (King Diamond??!) and a good chunk of gleeful humour.
With a lovely cackling introduction to the chunky riff of the title track I am initially taken aback by the vocals: A weird, wavering all over the place combination of Danzig evil Elvis parody and King Diamond wailing that you genuinely wonder if it’s genius or incompetence. Danzig haters will love it, Danzig fans (me) will find it funny and by the second track ‘The Gate’ you realise when he shifts into gruffness the guy can sing just fine so one tick for genius and a bonus point for basing a song on a fine, fine 80s metal-themed b-movie. So far, so devil-horned krispy-creme goodness.
By ‘Tonight’ you do realise that there is a bit of a split personality going on here. Some tracks are pretty straight up metal (The Gate) whereas others are heavy on that Misfits sound. ‘Tonight’ is a cracker of the latter with the kind of hook that Tiger Army used to have in their goth-psychobilly armoury, but the equally catchy ‘Blind Dead Arise’ (you have seen the film’s, right? Right!?) is full on thrash with heavy metal breakouts and falsetto wailing. It’s all great fun, enthusiastically and infectiously executed and with flair. And enough of that loose, ramshackle sound to sound like they mean it.
The attention to crafting songs is mostly excellent, and I guess down to six years mulling things over in their mausoleum… er, rehersal studio. When they get it right like on ‘She’s Alone Again’ this is horror metal/punk perfection. When they don’t (‘Dead Fuck’) it’s generally vaguely tolerable and another good one will be along soon. Which brings me to the real issue: Length. I know they’ve been festering and rotting for six lonely years but no one ever watched a two and a half hour drive-in movie and these kind of albums need to be similarly short. Thirty five minutes is kinda the ideal target, but well under forty five in any case. At not much change from an hour this is way over the mark, sadly. My mind began to wander (mostly on the metal heavy tracks) and was snatched back (mostly by the Misfits heavy numbers.) If you start to listen halfway through you realise how good some of the tracks you faded out on actually are (‘Love Fades Away’ with its terrific lead breaks only being discovered like this for example.)
I suppose some songs like the ballad ‘No One Will’ are… ahem… so close to the inspiring source material that fans of Danzig in particular may baulk at them, too, but it could be argued that is missing a very loving point. The Lurking Corpses are not out to reinvent the coffin or the graveyard, they just want their own bit of freshly turned dirt to play in with the other ghouls and ghals and that they do that just fine for me.
Overlong, yes. But very tasty if, like pizza, you leave half in the fridge for breakfast.
I won’t spoil the ‘spot the film clip’ game either beyond the comment it was a surprise to find a Company Of Wolves clip lurking herein (very memorable as it was the voice over used as talented musician (and interior designer!) Dannielle Dax climbs out of the well). Cool.
The Lurking Corpses put a smile on my face. That’s all good.
(7.5/10 Gizmo)
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