Category Archives: CD reviews

Cancerslug slithers out more sleaze with “Sassy for Satan”

Alex Story clearly has a general disdain for humanity, as evidenced for almost two decades with his horror-inspired punk band Cancerslug, as well as his work with Misfits‘ guitarist Doyle. Whether it’s serious or sarcastic is in the ear of the beholder, though it seems to lean more towards satire on the band’s latest release Sassy for Satan. Debauchery has been a driving force for Cancerslug since its inception and that’s still the case with what is rumored to be the band’s final album.

The opening tracks are a perfect example of the contrarian way Story prefers to get his ideas across. With a name like “Friends,” the listener likely expects an uplifting song about those in the inner circle of this wolfman’s pack. Instead, we get an angry blast of cynicism about those who are “here till all my money or drugs come to an end.” The next track, entitled “Enemies,” is, oddly enough, more about camaraderie with its refrain of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” (though the song’s only other lyrics involve forceful felatio and “fucking people up”). The next three songs, “Disappointment,” “Born to Lose” and “Alone,” are continued examples of Story’s nihilistic outlook.

The rest of the album, however, takes a turn for the hilariously horrific. “I’ll Be Your Butcher” has a nursery rhyme-like cadence that makes lines like “Pretty darling, why are you screaming? I haven’t even cut you yet” a little less objectionable. “Hung Like Jesus” is lyrically just as blasphemous as it sounds, with an almost Motown-like groove that makes it a bit more palatable for the easily offended. And “Just a Hooker Away” is pure sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, with an unhealthy dose of violence for good measure. As if the rest of Sassy for Satan isn’t repulsive enough, “Rape Baby” is a repulsively uproarious tune about a girl who was rejected by her mother “because you had your daddy’s eyes,” but finally gains acceptance from a partner who thinks “it’s cool you didn’t die.”

If Sassy for Satan truly is Story’s swan song, this hound of hell is howling louder than ever. And with 2016 reportedly the last year the band will be performing, catching a Cancerslug show is more crucial than ever. By the way, the band’s final performance at The Masquerade‘s original location is tonight at Culture Shock!

The Casket Creatures get “Deranged” with latest horror rock release

Leave a reply

It’s been a crazy time for The Casket Creatures in the three years it has taken them to finish their third full-length album Deranged. With guitarist Derek Obscura now moonlighting as a member of Davey Suicide‘s band, vocalist (and Wrestling with Pop Culture contributor) Ryan Cadaver, bassist Cliff Damage and Obscura remain the core Creatures, with a rotating cast of drummers keeping the beat. Just as the She Screams EP showed a monstrously more accomplished band than we’d previously heard, Deranged displays the Creatures’ diversity within the horror rock genre.

While the blood-spattered cover photography by Kevin Mayfield (who fills in on guitar in Obscura’s absence) is reminiscent of American Psycho, there is no direct reference to this movie on the album (though the title track does tell at tale of a proud Patrick Bateman-like misanthrope). Instead, we get metal songs like “Springwood Slasher,” clearly inspired by A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the more melodic punk of “Just Like Tucker and Dale,” based on the comedy horror film Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. Other songs, such as “Blood Junkies,” “Raise the Dead” and “The Man Who Cheated Death,” could very well be about some obscure vampire, zombie and slasher films. They’re more likely, however, the result of the band’s general obsession with scary movies and punk rock.

Stylistically, the band remains firmly entrenched in the horror rock coffin while incorporating a deadly mix of pop punk, heavy metal and a touch of rockabilly. The opening staccato of “Devils Trap” is reminiscent of Green Day’s “Brain Stew” while Cadaver channels Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine on “Death Comes For You”. Then there’s the ’50s doo-wop of “Gore on the Dancefloor 2,” the crooning sequel to the more aggressive song from the band’s 2011 debut Tales from the Unknown, which, despite being a departure, fits right in with the rest of Deranged.

Like many horror rock acts before them, there’s always a comedic element to The Casket Creatures that keeps their morbid topics fun. “Planet Wolftron” and “Zombie Werewolves From Outer Space” were the sillier standouts from She Screams and have become fan favorites. The Deranged bonus track “VIG” is poised to become the band’s next crowd pleaser, with it’s satirical look at very important ghosts looking to live it up on the opposite side of the velvet rope in the afterlife.

Deranged offers a little bit of everything fans have come to love about The Casket Creatures, with a few new surprises, all in a cohesive collection of new singalongs. As has been the case with each previous release, the band continues to grow with each new album. That’s not to say the band has matured, though. These guys need to maintain their immaturity in order to keep cranking out music like this.

Motörhead practices familiar sorcery on “Bad Magic”

Leave a reply

For 40 years, Motörhead has been setting rock ‘n’ roll standards and weathering heavy metal fads thanks to its no-nonsense approach to hard rock. Lead by bassist and gravelly-voiced vocalist Lemmy Kilmister, this British band has been incredibly influential not only to the rock bands of the ’70s, ’80s and beyond, but also to the persona of WWE Executive Vice President, Talent, Live Events & Creative Triple H. With Bad Magic, the band’s 22nd studio album, things are just as they’ve always been, which is exactly how Motörhead fans want them to be.

Standout tracks include “The Devil”, featuring Queen‘s Brian May on guitar, and “Sympathy for the Devil,” a gritty cover of The Rolling Stones‘ classic. But Satan isn’t the only subject matter on Bad Magic, though evil does seem to prevail throughout the album. The band kicks things into full throttle with “Victory or Die,” which sets a supercharged pace for the next 40 minutes or so. “Thunder & Lightning” keeps things revved up as Lemmy growls about the pros (“you get more pussy”) and cons (“life on the road isn’t easy”) of being a rockstar. Driven by the drumming of Mikkey Dee and a scorching guitar solo by Phil Campbell, “Shoot Out All of Your Lights” gallops across the fire and brimstone Motörhead has come to call home.

If there is a theme to be found on Bad Magic, it is one of self empowerment and standing up for what you believe in even when faced with opposition and adversity. With “Electricity” and “Evil Eye,” these messages are delivered with Motörhead’s classic aggression. On “Till the End,” however, we get that rare Motörhead ballad that emerges about once every album or so to convey a similar “don’t tell me what to do” message in a slightly more melodic manner. Throw in some small doses of paranoia and you have a Motörhead album like any other. After four decades of rocking on its own terms, there’s no reason for this band to start practicing any new sort of magic anyway.

www.imotorhead.com

The Casket Creatures make horror rock fans scream with delight on “She Screams”

1 Reply

Usually when a band is forced to replace some of its more prominent members, it’s a setback that hinders recording, performing and overall creativity. But Doctor Frankenstein himself couldn’t have reassembled a rock ‘n’ roll monster as quickly and powerfully as The Casket Creatures have. With She Screams, vocalist Eddie Cadaver, guitarist Derek Obscura and bassist Cliff Damage have concocted a collection of seven songs that retain the horror punk aesthetic The Casket Creatures have become known for while adding an extra jolt of energy to electrify even more then before.

She Screams begins, appropriately enough, with the sounds of a woman screaming as the band takes a more hardcore metal approach on “GKMF” (which stands for “get killed, mother fucker,” in case you were wondering). The Casket Creatures then take the listener through a fast-paced sci fi storytelling session with the hopeless haunted house tale “Haunted,” the rotten romance of “Graveyard Girl” and the apocalyptic horror of “The Final Night”. Then you come to what I consider to be the main event of She Screams, “Planet Wolftron” and “Zombie Werewolves From Outer Space,” a spooky song about extraterrestrial wolfmen who crash land on Earth only to become reanimated and go on a rampage. The EP concludes with the title track, a somewhat surprising ballad-like number reminiscent of something from The Rocky Horror Picture Show with it’s deadly love story and melodic instrumentation.

To say The Casket Creatures have matured with She Screams would imply that these guys have grown up. But that’s not really what we want from a band that sings about alien invasions, zombie outbreaks and other supernatural salaciousness. But you can definitely hear an improvement in the musicianship here, and the lyrics maintain a wittiness that can only come from equal doses of brains, blood and fun.

The Casket Creatures celebrate the release of She Screams at Wrestling with Pop Culture’s third anniversary party with Monstrosity Championship Wrestling at Club Famous on March 14.

Green Day concludes trilogy earlier than scheduled with “¡Tré!”

Leave a reply

Originally scheduled for a January 2013 release, the final chapter in Green Day‘s new trilogy is out a month early. As was the case with ¡Uno! (read my review here) and ¡Dos! (read my review here), ¡Tré! shows the band simultaneously getting back to basics and exploring refreshingly different (at least for Green Day) sonic territories.

What sets ¡Tré! apart from its two predecessors is its simplicity. While ¡Uno! and ¡Dos! celebrated the pop predictability and punk pride that launched Green Day’s career in the ’90s, both albums were unintentionally ambitious. And I don’t mean ambitious in the politically-charged rock opera sense that went along with American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown. Quite the opposite, actually. Instead ¡Uno! and ¡Dos! felt like they took the band in different directions because the band was willing to just see what happened rather than creating a highly structured aural arrangement.

Where ¡Uno! favors the bands more rambunctious side and ¡Dos! leans towards Green Day’s folk and garage rock influences, ¡Tré! is a more consistent record with slightly more fleshed-out songs and cleverly tongue-in-cheek lyricism. “Brutal Love,” with its doo-wop-like composition, provides an apt prelude to the punk pacing that follows. It’s easy to envision the members of the band snickering at their prank-like pregnant pause that follows the first few guitar strums of “8th Avenue Serenade,” and “Drama Queen,” with its chorus of “She’s old enough to bleed now,” is probably one of the funniest coming-of-age songs ever written (as is “X-Kid”).

“Sex, Drugs & Violence” and “Amanda” are filled with Green Day’s classic sarcasm and sneering rock ‘n’ roll attitude. “Dirty Rotten Bastard” is a rollicking drinking song not unlike the Irish punk of the Dropkick Murphys. And ¡Tré! ends with “The Forgotten,” a rock ballad that brings the album full circle. Now that Green Day has finished this simplistically excessive undertaking, it will be interesting to see what the band has in store for us next. If it’s anything like these three albums, it should be a lot of fun.

www.greenday.com

“Void Vanishing” is a Qurious departure for ambient duo

3 Replies

On its third album Void Vanishing, the duo of Mike Netland and Catherine Quesenberry continues to create uniquely Qurious atmospheric sounds. The dreamlike electronic soundscapes Netland conjures are the perfect backdrop for Quesenberry’s sleepy vocal delivery, which sounds as if it’s being emitted from some distant place only to float in at the perfect moment.

The allure begins with “Gaida,” an enchanting cacophony of organ and ethereal singing that melds right into “Wunderkammer,” with its more distinct beats and lyricism. “Rubies” pulsates out of an atmospheric abyss to gradually become one of the album’s most pop-structured songs before dissipating into an airy breakdown that flows right back into the song’s framework.

Much of Void Vanishing (namely songs like “Gears” and “Rima”) are reminisent of nursery rhymes sung by a fairy while “Gold” and “Termina” have a Devo-meets-Kraftwerk urgency that provides something more upbeat than the rest of the album. But whether it’s the ambient instrumentalism of “Pactolian” or the abstract arrangement of “Rima,” Qurious is adept at aural experimentation always on the verge of evaporating but never completely fluttering away. Much like those lucid moments between sleeping and waking, Void Vanishing‘s electronic pulse is always pumping just enough to keep Quesenberry’s feather-like afloat.

www.qurious.bandcamp.com

Green Day’s “¡Dos!” is the second step in a punk rock trilogy

1 Reply

Not quite two months ago, Green Day began what could be its most ambitious musical project to date with the release of ¡Uno!, the first in a trilogy of back-to-basics albums (read my review here). The second installment, aptly titled ¡Dos!, continues down the chronological path towards January’s ¡Tré! with another set of bouncy, sugary-sweet punk rock blasts that sound like a band gladly reliving its youth rather than becoming jaded and uninspired as it grows older.

The solo acoustic stylings of lead-off track “See You Tonight” might indicate this album is going to explore Green Day’s folkier side (which the band has previously done well on 2000’s Warning and Nimrod‘s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”). But ¡Dos! quickly reveals itself to be just as energetic as anything the band has previously released. “Wild One” sounds like a mature sequel to “She,” with its calm refrains about a seemingly doomed obsession with a potentially crazy girl. “Makeout Party” is a fast-paced, rollicking rock ‘n’ roll good time while “Stray Heart” has an almost rockabilly feel.

“Ashley” picks things back up with another exciting ode to the virtues of bad girls and “Lady Cobra” takes a few garage rock cues from the White Stripes‘ “Fell in Love with a Girl.” “Nightlife” is the biggest surprise on ¡Dos!, with it’s electro beats and lurid lyricism from Mystic Knights of the Cobra‘s Lady Cobra juxtaposed with bits of dark twang. And “Amy” (a tribute to Amy Winehouse) bookends ¡Dos! with another Elvis Costello-like acoustic pop solo from Billie Joe Armstrong.

www.greenday.com