DC Larson's JUKEBOX JURY

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Zombina and the Skeletones

The Call of Zombina

(9x9 Records)

Being a lifelong devotee of horror cinema (both classic and drive-in detritus sorts), the present writer is reminded of director/co-producer Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula. (The titular menace was, of course, interpreted by ominous icon Bela Lugosi.) Throughout The Call of Zombina, cobwebbed circumstances in which eerie misdoings seem imminent abound. The magnetism that lurks is as much the product of somber tones as august movements. Dark passages hurtling and implicitly sinister are brewed judiciously; the effect is deliciously fearsome imbalance.

Recommended: "Blood Rite For the Resurrection of a Sleeping Countess," "Cemetery World," "The Black House," "Vampire's Kiss," "Don't Kick My Coffin," "I'm Horrified!," "Valley of the Shadow," "Dead Birds," "Ghost Train II: Oblivion," "No Wonder I'm Always Anxious"

Videos: "Blood Rite For the Resurrection of a Sleeping Countess" "Ghost Train II: Oblivion"

Amazon (CD, vinyl, and MP3)

The Crypt Daddies

Midnight Monster Revue

(Self-issued)

Dire action bursts immediately in sliced shards of macabre bellicosity. Chords and doom-beats whip past, their moonlit locomotion ridden by guttural spewings from beyond. The Orgy of the Dead now enjoys a soundtrack.

Recommended: "Creature from the Black Swamp," "Reanimate My Heart," "Screamerhead," "So Far From Home"

Video: "Creature From the Black Swamp"

Pale Imitation

...He Was a Zombie? EP

(Self-issued)

The stairs lead downward to dread. Basic instrumentation makes its eccentric point with directness, while gravelly mutterings whose origin likely involved a Twilight Zone cauldron demand fixation. Authorship of this wicked melange is enigmatic; scant online clues (including even one name) can be located. But guitar maneuverings engage. And constructions bespeak fecundity.

Recommended: "The Monsters Are Loose," "Zombies On the Dancefloor," "Living By the Graveyard"

Video: "The Monsters Are Loose"

ca.7digital.com

Apple

Spotify

Back In the day, 2003

Demented Are Go

Live At the Galaxy

(Crazy Love Records)

By the moment this is visible, DAG will be laying waste to French environs, having left casualaties in their flamboyant, grisly Mexican and Columbian wake. As tattooed wretches yet breathing anticipate a promised 2025 studio disc, retrospective consideration of this bygone live document is apt.

Sparky and disfigured mates were captured in technicolor spectacle as they bombarded wrecking mutants with cacophonous ruckus, Owing to crisp sound quality, stark songs that rained down on multi-hued quiffs come across spectacularly.

Sparky's immediately recognizable snarl and six-string hitman Lex Luther's targeted shootings ricochet and resound. The pair tower as uncannily dynamic. And the rhythm cell joining in the muscular madness knock down walls.

No song is superfluous. Each storms with unspeakable aspect. The crowd's shouts attest to the power of DAG's maliciously oddball spectacle.

Today's lineup differs. But fresh online footage depicts the present incarnation as no less alacritous and enamored of morbidness. The forthcoming disc can be expected to make monsters of those daring to listen.

Recommended: "Sickness of Truth," "Holy Hack Jack," "One Sharp Knife," "Queen of Disease," "Reptile Queen," "Blood Beach," "Zombie Stalk," "P.V.C. Chair," "Don't Send Me No Flowers," "Love Seeps Like a Festering Sore"

Videos: "Queen of Disease" "Reptile Queen" "Love Seeps Like a Festering Sore"

Sunday, October 13, 2024

The Kopy Katz

"Rock & Roll, Women and Beer" single

(Self-issued)

The Kopy Kats are 100% swinging hepsters who proffer chops more than sufficient to validate the stylin' attire they sport. There's absolutely nothin' goin' on here other than the free-wheeling Rebel Sound common folks once forged from roots-musics - and that's a very good thing. The trio understands no one wants subtlety or self-indulgence when they're trying to sow wild oats. The party starts now.

Video

Alestorm

Voyage of the Dead Marauder EP

(Napalm Records)

Riffing in the rigging. Scottish Alestorm's marriage of city-leveling metallic explosiveness and olde seafarers' sprightly airs is colorfully idiosyncratic to an epic degree. Through seven previous albums and before international arenas full of fist-thrusting devotees, the adventurous chord-slammers raised up towering adamantium slabs supplemented by swashbuckling gusto. In frontman/keyboardist Chris Bowes' full-lunged growling seethe the wraiths of a thousand rapacious buccaneers.

Recommended: "Voyage of the Dead Marauder" (feat. Patty Gurdy), "Uzbekistan," "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate," "Sea Shanty 2," "Cock"

Videos: "Voyage of the Dead Marauder" "The Last Sakatchewan Pirate" "Cock"

Site (purchase)

V/A

Graveyard Tramps Eat the Forbidden City Dog Food

(Tutman Records)

Three decades ago, Lux Interior compiled approximately half of these tracks on wax. Rudimentary Rhythm & Blues, Garage, and Go-Go Rock'n'Roll numbers appear, but offbeat novelty outings also rise and fit no classification devised by man. But Exotica (a designation that occasionally suits) proffers peculiar charm, and intriguing elements can be located. Eccentric song-pleasures are punctuated with promotional excerpts for drive-in detritus Girls For Rent, The She-Beast, Scream Blacula Scream, and Vampire Playgirls.

Discogs advises that the full title given above was the one Lux printed on his cassette compilation. It was abbreviated to Forbidden City Dog Food for the original vinyl issuance.

Recommended: "China Rock" (Florence Pepper), "Space Craze" (Rick McGuire), "March Slav Boogie" (Homer Denison Jr), "Noisey Village" (Rod McKuen), "The Bird's the Word" (The Rivingtons), "Turkey Neck Stretch" (Grady O'Neal), "Bacon Fat" (Andre Williams), "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" (The Rivingtons), "The Bee" (Kenny Henkle's Friends), "(Let's Dance) The Hump" (The Invictas), "Oo-Ma-Liddi" (J.J. Jackson and the Jackals)

Videos: "Noisey Village" "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" "(Let's Dance) The Hump"

Trailers: "Girls For Rent" "The She-Beast" "Scream Blacula Scream" "Vampire Playgirls" (radio spot)

Bandcamp

Drunkabilly

Discogs