Hot Rod Horror Garage - Reviews an album; Calamitiez

Hey there kats and kittens, hows about a bit of an album review?  Oh yeah, that sounds nice, doesn't it? Right then, lets get to it.

Doc Wrench and myself welcome you to the first of however many reviews we end up doing!

First up, Calamitiez, a band out of Barcelona. Were reviewing their self titled disc, you heard one of the tracks on HRHG#9 (Toxic Love). This one has had half a dozen or more spins out in the garage already and I've barely had it two weeks. Their sound mixes a good spoonful of punk in with some bass slapping psychobilly, throw in a bloody spattering of horror themed songs and you have yourself a nice plateful of ear candy.

Heh, pipe down Mark, these guys don't want some wine snob review. They want to know that the Calamitiez keep the pace up and the rock rippin' your ears solid through almost the entire album.  Hell, they dont even give y'all a breather with a slower song until track 11.  So all y'all keep that in mind, y'all gotta wreck for 10 songs before you get a beer break!  Make the sucker quick too, they get right back on the gas and kickin' ass on the next song.

Come on Doc, thats not telling them anything other than when to get a beer. They are grown ups, and know when the hell to get their own damn beer.  Its more important to know that the mix is done really well, the bass slaps come through clear and punchy without droning over the great crunchy guitar riffs. The vocals are strong throughout the album and the band plays tight. Y'all can really crank the hell out of this disk and wont end up with a shit heap of musical sludge.

Look at you and your fancy words... of course they can crank it up, you just turn the damn knob to 11. But first, they gotta get their mitts on it.  So if all y'all point your webwinder click-a-majigger over here... Raucous Records you can get this bad boy on CD.

Good call Doc, there are other places to buy it too I'm sure, but Raucous always has a damn good selection of great music. Heres a video, the quality leans towards the "recorded on a potato" side, but you get the idea. Calamitiez "Army of the Underworld"   A few tracks that really get my wreck up on this disc: The Man Who Cannot Die, Covering Your Face, and Toxic Love.
Well, that wraps up this little experiment.  Let me know what you think; should we shut the hell up or give this review thing another spin sometime?

Keep the skinny pedal down, and and speakers begging for their lives!
-Mark & Doc Wrench

This week's listening. Gothabilly Razin' Hell.

Gothabilly Razin' Hell

Good morning psychogardenerbillys and chainsaw chicks.
I thought I would punch a few lines about a compilation album I am revisiting this week. It is the excellent "Gothabilly Razin' Hell" from Skully Records. This is the third compilation of gothabilly artists released by Skully Records and many of the artists have been featured on the previous two albums too. We have many well-known artists playing in the doom country influenced gothabilly style like The Coffinshakers, Big John Bates, and Mr. Badwrench but also several lesser known or more regional-based artists like Pussyliquor and The Spectres. Psychocharger rears it's head again and though I would argue that they are not what I would personally term gothabilly, they are also very hard to classify anyway and they fit in with the overall sound of the compilation. I have played the previous two compilations several times on the PGP Show - in fact they were heavily featured on the first two or three show. This makes them dear to my old, creaking, undead heart . From a cursory sweep of the intercobwebs I have found that you can track down sellers of the CD via Amazon. I will be spinning some tracks from the album on PGP this week which will be show number 149. In the meantime, how about dropping a few dollars, euros or pounds to get a hold of this classic compilation. Time for me to grab some coffee.

Have a kick-arse Wednesday!

Skully Records

Teabag's sack this week - Thee Flatliners "Pandemonium". What an album!

I must say that whilst researching the music for the next PGP show I really enjoyed an old find in the #deadnate archives of the dead masters collection. It was the discography of the fantesticle band Thee Flatliners. They were formed in 1995 by members of Austria's neo-rockabilly bands Cadillac Rust and The Cryptkickers.

The album that I've been listening to the most is Thee Flatliners 2001 long-player "Pandemonium". I appreciate their other releases like Rhapsody In Black, Enter The Twilight and Vampires. In fact there is very little here that isn't to like, apart from the lack of any new releases of course.

Pandemonium is simply a rolling behemoth of an album. The whole affair opens up with a bizarre vocal on the title track but the following songs have that fannytastic "springy" double-bass sound that I like. There are definitely some horror-punk influences on the guitar which is more on the metallic or hard-rock side of the street rather than rockabilly. Remember though that this was released in the early turn of the century when psychobilly was moving further and further away from a trad-rockabilly sound and into the punkabilly style. Talking of guitar, the release from the strictly 50s style gives some flexibility for the boys to get creative with the sound-engineering. I have to say that one of my favourite songs is The Bastards In Your Head which is an epic track simultaneously flexing it's psychobilly muscles and then suddenly falling into a tremolo of psychedelia before returning to a two-step rock n roller.

Vocals on tracks like Cursed to Live Forever recall Kim Nekroman at his finest, which is a very, very good thing of course. The band has a tendency to use backing vocals which probably harks back to their origins in neo-rockabilly bands. The use of harmonies is something which is sorely missed in many of the harder-edge psychobilly bands and adds an interesting counterpoint to the tough-as-nails instrumentation.

All in all this wonderful album is definitely something that you should have in your collection.

You can get it over here at Crazy Love Records: http://www.crazyloverecords.de/flatliners-thee-pandemonium-cd.html