Time for little horror punk to grace the pages of this zine again. The Karnsteins are hailing from Bratislava, Slovakia and this is their new EP containing five songs. I love the music of The Karnsteins. Why? Because they play horror punk the way I like it. With no philosophy, no industrial or death rock, just plain and simple old school horror punk just made for singing along and enjoying gory and bloodsoaked lyrics, in many ways they reminded me of Blitzkid, my favorite horror punk band. I love dual male/female vocals, especially in ‘Vincent Price’, another plus for this band since Vincent Price is my favorite horror actor, so to sing a song about him, hats off guys! The concept behind the whole EP is to praise three kings of terror from my favorite Hammer Horror pictures era, namely Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. I LOVE IT! Besides eighties golden era slasher, found footage, my favorite but really favorite horror is Hammer Horror/American International era movies with all those Edgar Allan Poe inspired movies, Lee’s Dracula and Cushing’s Van Helsing, also Cushing’s Frankenstein movies. I love the mixture of hardcore punk speed and horror punk melody. I recommend this band to all horror punk fans. The EP is ‘name your price’ but at least write a word or two to the guys in the band, I am sure they will appreciate it.
Time for a bit of horror punk rock to be featured on the pages of this zine. The Deathtones are coming from Pennsylvania and this is their full length album featuring 15 songs. As the band states on their Bandcamp page, these are all the best songs from their first year plus three new and exclusive songs. But, it doesn’t matter because to me, this full length is the first I heard of this band and I am loving it. This is not your Misfits or Blitzkid clone band, this is original horror/shock/punk rock delivered with conviction. I also love the use of samples in such bands and encourage them completely. This is metal influenced, as can be heard in the awesome title song, sounding a bit like Iron Maiden in the song structure but with superb double bass drum too. There are also gothic influences, at least in singing, as I heard it in ‘All Hallows Eve’. Lyrics deal with various horror and macabre themes, so the songs like ‘The Shape’ with great Halloween sample intro, or ‘Here With Me(A Chainsaw Love Story)’, maybe for all of you ‘Imposter At The Costume Party’ are about to win you over. This is one of the best horror punk releases I have listened in a long time. Maybe there are no sing along ooohs and aaahs but it is original, dark, gloomy and melodic. Love it!
Time for horror punk to grace the pages of this zine again. This time, it is a split release between Houston’s Cemetery Static and ROT from Mexico. Each band is featured with four songs here. It is interesting that there are no one side by one band, then another by other band. This split goes one song by CS, one by ROT and so on. Well, I liked Cemetary Static side a lot because they play rather fast and raw hardcore punk with horror lyrics and shouted vocals, meaning they are not your typical horror punk band, rather hardcore horror punk. ROT from Mexico were already featured in this webzine, meaning also raw and fast hardcore punk with horror filled lyrics, both bands are not your usual Blitzkid/Misfits/Calabrese horror punk style of bands. No, this is raw energy and horror lyrics. I must admit that on this release both bands deliver, but somehow I liked Cemetary Static side of split better. But, that is only my opinion. Now, go, listen, support and long live the horror!
