- - -

PHANTOM CREEPS :
PHANTOM CREEPS

Taking their name from an ancient 1939 Universal Sci-Fi / Horror serial (you will recognize the giant robot in this serial as the one Rob Zombie always has strutting about on stage) staring Bela Lugosi, The Phantom Creeps dish out 13 cuts of horror-themed Surf-Rock. The main man here is Mr. Gein, who also plays in the similarly themed band known as Gein And The Graverobbers. In fact, if it weren't for the different line ups for both of these bands, you'd have a tough time telling them apart. However there are some differences. For one thing, in the Phantom Creeps, we have some periodic vocals. Now usually, I'll always take a song with vocals over an instrumental track, but as they say, here is the one exception that proves the rule. Out of the 13 songs found here, five of them have lyrics. On two songs, it works, the other three... well, I'm taking a full point of the CD for those. The two that work are "13:18", and an unexpected cover version of the only real cool Twisted Sister song ever recorded, "Burn In Hell" from their 1984 humongous hit of an album "Stay Hungry". On 13:18 the vocals are nice and creepy, on Stay Hungry they're kind of just spoken, but the track is much slower than the original, so it works well. The other three songs that employ strange throat augmentations are "Dead Sled", "Dead And Gone", and "Beach Blanket Bloodbath". The vocals on these are highly altered (well, either that or someone sure has some personal issues, and ended up with a soar throat afterwards), and they just end up detracting from what are otherwise three cool songs. But, all that being said, there is some highly infectious Surf style shredding going on. Add to that some cool audio samples from bygone horror movies, and you have a disc that fans of the genre will still seriously dig.
RATING = 7 Horror-Surf (Released 2002)

- - -

PHANTOM CREEPS / DAMIEN STORM :
WENT TO HELL (AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY RECORD)

Split CDs... these always lead to trouble. I just reviewed one from Algol & Shroud Of Despondency and it suffered from the same problem this one suffers from, one great band, and one... well, not so great. First the basics, this is an eight-song (four each) split disc between creepy Surf-Rockers the Phantom Creeps, and Horror-Metal psycho Damien Storm. First up is our beloved Phantom Creeps; John "Creepy" Kozik (Anal Cunt) - guitar/vocals, Gein (Gein And The Grave Robbers) - guitar/vocals, Rev. Travis - bass, and Justin Accident - drums. If you've heard them before, or Gein's other band, then you pretty much know what to expect, cool-ass Surf-Rock with occasional freaky vocals. These four tracks are both groovy and creepy, and man I could listen to this stuff all night. Next up is this thing called Damien Storm. My first reaction was "this has to be a fuckin' joke". But, after spinning it a few times, and letting it all sink in, my reaction is now "this has to be a fuckin' joke". Damien Storm is not a band, it is a solo effort from one messed up freak. Damien has been recording music since 1990, so you'd think by now he would know what he was doing, but this slop sounds like it was recorded in his bathroom, with a plastic pail being used as a drum. The vocals are... what can I say? The vocals make King Diamond and Justin Hawkins (The Darkness) sound like Chris Barnes (Cannibal Corpse)! This is barely demo quality, low-grade falsetto Heavy Metal, that should be sent right back to the hell from which it came. I'm guessing that either Gein (who runs Necro-Tone Records) was high as a kite when he agreed to this split, or Damien blackmailed him to be included here. The Phantom Creeps portion easily qualifies for a rating of seven, if I was in a really good mood, it might be almost a seven and a half, but we'll stick with seven for now. The Damien portion of the disc qualifies for maybe a two, or on the generous side, a three. I'll be nice and throw 'em the three, so we'll average out to a five for the whole thing. I'm still glad I have this, but after track four ends, I just have to remember to leap for the eject button. If you want to grab a copy, do it now, as only 1000 were pressed. If you want more info on these two, check out damienstorm.com and the Phantom Creeps page over at Necro-Tone.
RATING = 5 Horror-Surf / Horror-Metal (Released 2004)

- - -

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U/V W-Z

SOUNDTRACKS TRIBUTES COMPILATIONS

GOT A PROBLEM WITH ONE OF MY CD REVIEWS?
DO YOU AGREE WITH ME?
THEN GO TO THE

- - -

"Greatest hits albums are for housewives and little girls."
 -Bruce McCulloch K.I.T.H. '91

Sign Guestbook View Guestbook
Old Guest Book

HOME

IF YOU THINK MY CD REVIEWS SUCK, CLICK HERE!

urotsukidoji_1@yahoo.com

This page hosted by GeoCities Get your own Free Home Page