There is a corner of my heart that is forever goth. I also have a real soft spot for horror punk of a gleefully candy coated ghoulish nature, tattooed ladies with a fifties styling and quiff rattling psychobilly. Well apart from the psychobilly the PR seemed to tick the other boxes nicely so I thought “Hey, could be fun”.

Ok; the name. Firstly if you’re brave enough to google it you’ll find a surprising number of hits for academic and sociology sites (it’s a controversial theory from, the 80s about long term lesbian relationships rather than what you lot at the back were sniggering about). But mostly the name brings a shed load of baggage because you need to be either bloody good or bloody fun to survive it. Well they’ve made it to three albums so good on them for that.

I make the mistake of sticking on the bonus DVD first. Hopes sink. From the awful Goth Girls Are Easy, then through a video that (I hope) was ‘paying homage’ to both the video of Moonchild and the bass line of Psychonaut and into the more pub rock than punk rock of Pretty But Mental there is little to raise my spirits. But then the monumentally post Danzig Misfits song Moonlight comes on and for the first time I smile.

So. To the album.

‘Darkness Falls’ opens the account with some oddly Nephilim-esque bass beneath the melodic trebly guitar that Katatonia used to do. The vocals are high, clear and with a nice tone and breathy style here and there. The song is a bit lacking and OK rather than a blasting opener, but not a bad start at all. ‘Soul Sucker’, a tragic tale of love gone bad and revenge in the form of eating brains is more of Famous Monsters meets the kind of college rock that passes for punk in old Buffy episodes, but despite the latter it bounces along  very nicely indeed and the DVD misgivings fade. ‘Halloween’  then introduces a frightening moment when the riff threatens to break into Rainbow’s ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’ and at it’s worst is a forgettable bit of metal just lifted out of the abyss by a catchy and lovely sneering chorus. ‘ A Deadly Romance’ does show how good a voice Ms. Racchea really has with a nice range and tone but the song is a pseudo Ballad with pretty bland lyrics that leaves me unmoved. ‘Rockabilly Bitch’ thankfully punches up the tempo and the riffing and at least it’s bitchy enough for the title and it does get me humming along again. Which is more than I can say for ‘So Wasted’ which lives up to its name too, sadly.

My basic problem and frustration with LBD is this: On the one hand they are blessed with a rock solid rhythm section, riffs are played spot on and they have a fine set of tonsils in their front woman. On the other hand that tantalising potential kind of makes it so much worse when they fall down on the one basic thing you have to get right when operating around the horror/punk axis; the songs. Here the lyrics are far too often not witty, funny nor even deadpan serious; more paranormal romance than classic horror. Yet when they go all out Misfits they show they can be catchy as all Hell and have the style to go with it. Alas more often they seem to get sidetracked into unmemorable metal with a hint of the nu that has precious few hooks to keep me interested I’m afraid. ‘Seven Days’ is a perfect example of this and you can catch its like on video channel rotation every day. I guess that at least shows there may be a market for this though.

The spiky little bounce and squeaky voice of ‘Ghostface’ is a strange, sudden jolt of Red Bull after all this and much, much more like it. Tag-teamed with the title track it forms a nice little corner here and even if next song ‘Chains’ is a little too poppy it snuggles up close and bizarrely, happily wins me over.

So then we get the re-recordings: The still pretty dire ‘Pretty But Mental’, the still great fun ‘Moonlight’ and the actually excellent commercial bop of ‘Designed By The Devil, Powered By The Dead’ which closes this out in style and has been on repeat in my brain all week.

So yeah, very mixed feelings.

If this was their debut these wouldn’t be too bad, but three albums down the line this is a little concerning. In their defence their existing fans actually paid for this up front so at least they know who loves them, which is cool.  Still, for me a re-think is in order or better quality control in the songwriting especially when the best songs here by a mile are those two re-recordings.

I am sure their existing fans will love it and it looks good value for them with 13 songs and a whole DVD. Me though? I so was in the mood for something that cited goth, horror punk, glam, sleaze and Misfits as influences but good as parts are, the album also let me down far more often than it hooked me. Really sorry.

4.5/10 Gizmo

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