The children of Perestroika learned the horror of impending capitalism thanks to pay-cable television, which broadcast cartoons about an echid mouse, an anarcho-syndicalist rabbit gnawing carrots and a tired basset hound. Those who had done their homework or had not done it at all settled down comfortably in front of the lamp boxes, so that after the block of cartoons they could hear a sincere translation put on the frames of another dismemberment of a well-fed “golden” youth, regularly arranged by an orphan in a hockey mask. This half-dead waif, as well as other category B psychopaths, served as a powerful, albeit somewhat fetid foundation for The Meteors founder Paul Fenech, who created the cycobilly style in the early 1980s.
Looking like Carlson from a Kid’s worst nightmares, Fenech had a unique timbre of voice. That’s what the illegitimate offspring of Vasily Livanov and the unburned Salem witch might sound like. As we can see, the guy simply had no way out, and already at the very beginning of the journey, a song appeared in the repertoire of The Meteors with the words “my mother was a mummy (see “Kid and Carlson”, A. Lindgren), and dad was a noble ghoul.” This is how the triumphal march of the band and the style through the darkest corners of the world began. Fortunately, The Meteors have not created imitators, but they have created a legion of followers.
Their music could enrich more than one classic horror movie if it weren’t more cinematic than most of these crafts. Having released more than two dozen albums, not counting solo albums, and after a five-year hiatus, Papa Paul and his ghouls returned with a new batch of gloating horror stories. The album is called “Skull’n’bones“, the cover was traditionally painted by Paul’s wife, Marina, a kind of radioactive Picasso from rock’n’roll, the vinyl of the disc is joyfully green, a la Raphael and Leonardo. Evil stalks invisible paths, follow it!
It is about the pursuit of Evil that the first, mental-instrumental Chasing Evil is about. The soundtrack to the post-apocalyptic “Tom and Jerry”, where a crazy two-headed rat on his pervert-mobile catches up with a tattooed cat, who devoured her children, even little Cheesesake. The guitar parodies the heroics of pasta westerns, laughter parodies laughter.
A Night In The Tombs is a heavy action movie typical of late Meteors. Rockabilly is for those who are not allowed into Hell because of the severity of their deeds. Skull’n’bones is a pirate dance song with a cheerful refrain “sail away!” It seems like dashing buccaneers boarding a pot-bellied “merchant”, dropping seaweed and pieces of rotting flesh on his deck.
Get Back In The Swamp (And Jump) – boogie in the best traditions of Papa Paul. There are plenty of places to dance in the swamps of Louisiana, and there are plenty of partners to choose from – all in alligator skin and with wide, welcoming smiles. They’ll dance themselves to death. Changeling is a beautiful, disturbing, wordless play about the fate of a changeling. At times, the guitar sound resembles a harp, depicting the surprise of parents who discovered that the child seemed to be native, but he could shoot two meters with his tongue and had to cut his eardrums regularly.
Dateless Nights is an old song, played a little slower here, but with a better sound. Optional, but enjoyable. Gary Gilmore’s Eyes is a version of The Adverts’ only hit, the story of the real murderer Gary Gilmore, who refused clemency and bequeathed his eyes to science. I guess his eyes turned out to be as useless for research as any punk rock song of the seventies is monotonous and boring.
We Will Rise is a heroic racehorse. As if the Elusive Avengers were wolfmen. The Night Comes With Me is a classic Meteor Shower. And every note oozes thick darkness, and there is no compassion for the fallen… Zombie Noise is a zombilly arrangement of their own psychobilly classics. It has a place to be, it has a right to exist.
More Demons Than Most is psychopathic rockabilly again. It is precisely such songs by Fenech that depict canvases in hopeless noir tones. Twisted is a slow step that turns into a run in the chorus. Tonight, a gentleman with taste and a rich arsenal will finally treat himself to a fresh meal.
Despite the correct ingredients, “Skull’n’bones” is definitely not the best album by the Cycobilleasaurs, even if the band is in excellent shape. The feeling doesn’t go away, as if the album was made in a hurry, on the mountain. Hence the self-repetitions and the lack of attention to the arrangements. But what is there is much more than other groups can accumulate in a lifetime. Midnight is the hunting time, Moon Dogs!
PS: Only The Meteors are pure psychobilly (the author’s opinion may not coincide with the opinion of the editors)!!!
