Hymns from the House of Horror Volume II

Rue Morgue magazine has assembled its second “Rue Morgue Radio” compilation, , a FREE 20-song download (with printable cover art) available here. The set’s only available through the end of July 2011, so act now or have your curiosity hacked to tiny pieces by a bloodthirsty maniac.

This is great chainsaw-and-daggers ammunition with which to convince naysayers that horror music isn’t all Goth, just as horror fiction isn’t all Stephen King.

Black Moth Super Rainbow’s “Born on a Day the Sun Didn’t Rise” is a commercial, rock-riff driven track for zombies and vampires who can dance. The Brains’ “Screaming” is a punkabilly horror short story. Calabrese’s “Violet Hellfire” hearkens to ‘80s metal. The Crypt Club’s “Crush” is Cure-ish prog-punk. Suck Me” by Spooklight featuring Ryan Lindsey has both Country/Western and New Romantic aspirations. There’s even a birthday song, by horror rappers So Sick Social Club. I’m, most partial to the clock-rocking “13 O’Clock Rock” by the Memphis Mortician (one of several tracks which evoke the masters of the B-movie retro-rock punk genre, The Cramps), the disorienting piano-calm “Bad Ritual” by Timbre Timbre. Best-known band on the comp is GWAR, with the glorious “Zombies, March!” and the slow-building rave-up “You Can’t Give Me Anything” by Kreeps.

The download also comes with a brief creepy baritone-voiced intro to the whole comp (which segues into one of the least frightening, straightahead rock tracks, “Shhh…” by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets) and four hilarious radio ads for the icky fictional Z-movies The Kill Murder Killers, Zombies of the Dead, Day of the Rocks and Murder on the Gondola. The spots contain such come-ons as “You’ve seen all the other zombie movies. Now see this one,” “What could make ordinary people enter a stake of primal death murder for kick thrills?” and “This summer, stones will break your bones.”
For “Murder on the Gondola,” the title is intoned interminably while a huckster elaborates:
“The movie where one of the ushers is hired to actually stab the audience. … Don’t see it alone, or even with other people. Sensitive viewers will be provided with vomit bags filled with real vomit. An ending so shocking, we can’t even tell you that the killer did it. Starts this Friday. Ends this Thursday.”

I strongly recommend buying the print edition of Rue Morgue magazine which sponsors this comp, since it has four pages of lovely liner notes introducing you to all the bands. The May issue, leaving newsstands soon, also features a tribute to Vincent Price illustrated with fresh portraits of the sly stage/screen/radio sensation by 13 contemporary artists. The cover story’s on John Waters; that piece, “His Master’s Maniacs” by Rusty Nails, made me finally check out Waters’ 2010 book Role Models, a masterful memoir which I hope to discuss here at scribblers.us in the future.

A labor of gore-love all around, Rue Morgue is a great underground dwelling during the summer heat.