Information about the impending nuclear armageddon is increasingly surfacing in news feeds, and the Doomsday clock is scarier than a Monday alarm clock and almost as real. All these fears of the world refer me to the best, in my humble opinion, album by the Viennese cycobilly horror-punk band Bloodsucking Zombies from Outer Space, released exactly ten years ago in 2014.
I already talked about the BZfOS team last Christmas. Then I briefly mentioned that BZfOS is the reference cycobilly team of the twenty-first century, with which you can start to get involved in the style. Now I will add that the best entry point will be this album. By the time of the 14th record, the Austrians had matured to a very serious condition, leaving out all the amateur rough edges that had been found on the band’s earlier works. The point is that this album is very cool without any reservations or additional explanations of why it is cool. But I would like to add a few points about the coolness of the team. First of all, the image of the helmsman of this team catches on.
Dead “Richy” Gein is the main vocalist and drummer. Moreover, the drummer is a stand-up, according to the precepts of Skinny Jim. And it seems like it’s unprecedented in our circles! The Millions combine the role of a frontman and a drummer, and they can play standing up on the installation of part of the editorial staff of our magazine, one of us is really good. But the Zombies play really hard, and this makes the drumming much more difficult. Anyway, the combination of a leading role with an accompanying instrument can’t help but inspire. Maybe there was a cover of Madonna on the Christmas album because Richie sings “madonna” into the head microphone?
Reverend “Bloodshed,” the band’s permanent guitarist and keyboardist, demonstrates the same combination of roles. Also, at the time of writing this album, the band included Dr. “He-Mann” Schreck and Mr. “Jim” Evilize – double bass and guitar, respectively.
These aliens from the planet Transylvania (the original legend of the team) look exactly as kitschy as they are called. We’ll look into how and what they sound like in detail now.
Stretched over about 19 tracks (the bonus track and the intro can be confusing), this is an almanac of funny and creepy stories, like tales from the crypt. The red thread of the nuclear threat is quite common, but it is not the only one. But the album starts with her.
Overture is a short introduction filled with cinematic synthesizers and radio messages about the nuclear end of the world. There’s something of the Terminator franchise about synthesizers, but overall it all sounds like the opening credits to a movie.
The film itself is Radio Active, bursting into the ears with a megaton pressure. This is a story about a radioactive radio broadcasting to all the survivors. There’s a reason about the movie, because a wonderful Bi-movie clip was shot for the song.
Using the example of this song, we can consider the compositional feature of the band: each bridge, usually after the second chorus, tries to surprise the unprecedented, to give something a little less guessed. For example, here it’s Richie’s intense drum set, with angry, almost metallic riffs.
After the Storm is riding on the same powerful energy. The catchy guitar hook track tells the story of a world of post-apocalyptic adventures familiar to everyone from Fallout and Mad Max. Buried in Barrels develops this theme somewhat. Here we are talking about specific monsters – genetic mutants, dormant in the flasks of government bunkers. They will definitely rise one day, as the song’s bridge says.
Then the album makes a narrative turn and I like that the lyrical characters are placed in the experimental bunker Vault Tec. In this unnumbered shelter, everything is literally littered with old horror films that we have to watch.
Werewolf in a Girl’s Dormitory refers to the 1961 Italian film of the same name. It refers to two levels at once, because the American version of the film used the wonderfully haunting song The Ghoul in School by The Fortunes. It is this song that the Zombies quote in the refrain.
Bride of Frankenstein takes you to the field of Burton’s romance to a greater extent than a reference to a classic film. We are in the same gothic-melancholic mood throughout Into the Great Oblivion. Next, Lost in Another Dimension raises morale with a sardonic grin of doom.
The next track is dedicated to Linda Blair, the star of the movie “The Exorcist” and the object of the lyrical hero’s admiration. The song is filled not only with dialogue samples from the film, but also with a quote from the original soundtrack on keyboards.
On the next track, we will return to the topic of nuclear disasters and visit the Chernobyl Forest with the Zombies. By God, it’s literally an emo song about complicated longing, without any monsters in the bushes.
But the next song is not only my favorite on the album. It’s one of my favorite songs in general and it’s Camp Crystal Lake. It has everything: in the verses, everything reminds of the classics of the cycobilly, in the choruses it is carried away into the most cheerful punk chants. All this is accompanied by an ironic story about the familiar “homicidal moralist” Jason Voorhees from the films “Friday the 13th”. And of course the samples, much less without them.
Kids of the Apocalypse once again presents post-nuclear rock and roll, forcing you to get out of your bunker. Nutcase is a kind of confession of a psychobill in the band’s understanding. «Fake, but it’s looks good!»
G.H.O.U.L acts as a cheerful friendly punk mockery of the romantic traditions of the 50s. Crawlers continues the fun by referring to all the Bi-movies at once with their unearthly keyboard moves.
The Devil Rides Out is dedicated to the wonderful 1968 British film of the same name. The one with Christopher Lee.
Horror Picture Maniac is the second self-presentation of the musicians’ lifestyle in this album in their immense passion for dark cinema. It starts with He-Man’s extremely catchy double bass slap.
The Day the Earth Caught Fire brings us back to the forgotten gems of horror, the 1961 film of the same name. The theme of the movie itself rhymes with the red thread of the album.
And finally, with a clear Western country influence, the album completes The Order of the Black Thorn. Jim’s guitar is perfectly combined with the sullen wailing of the trumpet. To be honest, I still couldn’t find what exactly the black throne was referring to, but the very reference to the fantasy image of the dark lord in a western song is a wildly interesting combination.
The most inquisitive listeners are invited to crawl through the clicks of the Geiger counter to the hidden bonus track Der Gaskassier, an almost table–top goofy song in their native German. However, this is deceptive foolishness because we are talking about a real monster – the Austrian serial killer Harold Sassek. This little Easter egg seems to hint that the real evil is hiding unsightly and absurdly behind a grotesque amusement park.
As a result, we have a grandiose work that combines a lot of intertwined musical and visual images that evoke completely different emotions. And all this on a fierce fatal engine. Just lovely!
Toxic Terror Trax is an exemplary saiko album from an exemplary modern saikobilly band. Completely original, it retains the necessary continuity to the roots, both musical and the roots of horror culture as such.The metamodern recycling of classic tons of B-movies has transformed Austrians into real pop-cultural monsters! Monsters that we love very much. All genre components are in balance, none of them pulls the blanket over themselves. Except maybe horror punk, but I don’t have any problems with that. I love horror stories, and so will you.
