German horrorpunx The Crimson Ghosts are besides The Other most known and legendary European horror punk band. It’s been couple of years since the last one and I was eager to hear what will they do in new songs, judging by couple of singles they released prior to the record I knew I was in for a horror treat! The album offers eleven songs of trademark The Crimson Ghosts horror punk with lots of metallic influences and one of the best singer in the scene. Vlad’s vocals are sooo sweet and melodic, like doo wop singer in a horror punk band, every emotion, whether fear, whether loss, love, murder or bloody vengeance can be heard in his voice. From introspective ‘Of a Guilty Man’, one of my personal favorites, contemplative song about murder, to more metallic ‘On a Succubic Night’ Vlad’s vocal melodies rule sovereignly coupled with awesome guitar work, thundering bass and drum and one of the best backing vocal harmonies in the world. When all three voices join on choruses it makes my skin crawl with goosebumps. Argyle Goolsby of Blitzkid is a guest performer on another personal favorite of mine called ‘The Legend of Walking Sam’, I can only imagine how this hit sounds live. Anthemic choruses continue and songs like ‘From the Underground World’ hit me as a listener making me want to listen over and over again. ‘As the Whisper Grows’ is classic TCG sound, fast hardcore punk with horror lyrics and melody, with touch of metal aggression. Those songs are my personal favorites, but they change as I listen to this album over and over again, so you will have to find yours. If you are a fan, you will adore this record, if you are not, you will definitely become.
Time for some hardcore to grace the pages of this webzine. This time, it is the split record between Eyes Of Tomorrow and Perfect Sky. Eyes Of Tomorrow are old school hardcore band from Ruhr area, Germany. Their side of this record features five songs. Perfect Sky are Austrian hardcore band coming from Tulin district and were founded in 1999. So, it is German-Austrian hardcore combination for this record and Perfect Sky’s side contains six songs. Eyes Of Tomorrow play fast hardcore leaning more into punk and street punk roots than in metal, although there are some metallic moshing parts thrown in here and there for good measure. Vocals are screamed and shouted and fit perfectly to the songs, whole atmosphere that this band creates with their hardcore is darkened and gritty at times. I enjoyed every single minute of their side of this record. There are also some rock influences and at times they reminded me of Croatian hardcore legends Deafness By Noise. My favorite songs on their side are ‘Move Ahead’ and ‘Still The Same’. Perfect Sky are more into slower Euro hardcore reminding me a bit of Ryker’s in some song parts, also in singer’s voice being deep and throaty. Their side of the record is more metallic, aggressive and sounding like all those nineties hardcore bands that I adored. My favorite song on their side is ‘Die For A Lie’. Great split release by two great hardcore bands.
Earth Island Books continues to amaze us with all of their book releases. This time, I read this book by Welly Artcore, Welsh punk who played in bands for decades and released more than 40 issues of his fanzine called ‘Artcore’. What I always loved to read in fanzines was tour reports and gig/festival reports. This book is one huuuge tour report divided in two parts. First part is when Welly joined legendary punk band Chaos UK on their American tour in 1994 and it was a blast to read, being a fan of this band and reading about all the road stories and succesfull and failed gigs, also about other scenes, venues and especially loved the part when Chaos UK and New Orleans sludge legends EyeHateGod toured together and it was chaotic but blast! Each gig, travel to each venue/town is divided into short chapters, so it was fun to read without too long chapters and this book did not get boring for one single second! Second part of this book, second tour if you like is about Welly’s own Welsh hardcore punk band in which he sang, being Four Letter Word and their trials and tribulations across USA and Canada with their tour in 1998. I don’t know which part of the book I liked better. Both are extremely interesting, especially Four Letter Word tour with story about now defunct legendary label BYO and Youth Brigade, 7Seconds and many other bands that shared stage with Four Letter Word on that tour.
This is a great book, so I recommend it to every one who love to read fanzines, tour diaries and punk hardcore!
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 