Now I have reviewed a few albums by bands with questionable names. I have also reviewed a few albums that champion the horror flicks of my youth. Freddy Kruger’s Underpants 2017 thrash offering “1981” offered some from column A and some from Column B.
Lesbian Bed Death probably hope to do the same. They fall way, way short. Awful name for what is a pretty bog standard hard rock band. This is their 6th album and see’s the return of previously departed vocalist LUCI4 (c’mon now that’s a bad personalised number plate from Bad News innit).
This album was crowd funded so the band obviously have a fanbase that likes what they provide – probably the same folk that still dream of Monsters of Rock and their first snog at a Saxon show.
What this album contains is trad rock covers of tracks that appeared in various horror films in the 1980’s and three original tracks penned by the band.
I’ll deal with the covers first. Some are bona fide classics “Pet Sematary “ , “He’s Back” “Dream Warriors” and “Scream Until You Like It” are all present and just the titles bring back fond memories of going to the only corner video shop that would rent X rated movies to me and my mates when we were 12. In fact “He’s Back” by Alice Cooper appeared on Constrictor – the first rock album I bought and my gateway drug. The version by LBD turns a vaudeville creepy pantomime ode to Jason to a cheesy pastiche with LUCI4’s vocals riding roughshod over the melody. No danger or passion. This sounds like karaoke. Ramones (RIP) suffer a fate as bad. This is one version that should never have been placed in that resurrection site. The vocals sound phoned in for most of this album – no passion or gusto. I am not surprised really as the music sounds cut and pasted. Dokken, Motorhead, W.A.S.P and Autograph are all given the same treatment, though “Scream Until You Like It “ from Ghoulies 2 does maintain some of the raunch of the original and got my toes a tapping.
The band are described as a Hard Rock/ Punk Gothic band, of which only the first genre is really evident in their own compositions of which there are three.
Fury opens the album and is a straight up Euro style rocker, a bit Delain and a bit latter day Doro. LUCI4 sings with a lot more gusto on the original tracks and the band seem to gel. It is still pretty soul less and generic but the enthusiasm for what they are doing is there to hear.
Flesh is a raunchy bluesy number which has a fun verse with a classic biker rock riff running through it. The chorus though is all over the place and strangely mixed causing me to doubt my headphones and hearing.
On the band website the title track is described as “a sneering, aggressive monster that teeters on Hardcore” . It kicks off with a bit of Misfits style riffage but the half spoken / half shrieked vocals grate after a minute and the track solos itself off into mediocrity pretty quickly.
Final track is a cover of Heartbreaker previously covered by Pat Benatar . This track was chosen by a fan of Lesbian Bed Death as part of the Indie Go GO crowd funding and it truly is a good choice. This is the stand out track of the album. The vocals are great and the band do a great job of this track. It appears that the bands fans know their strengths.
This shows me that the band are competent at what they do when they put their minds to it. They can’t really be fans of the movies that they pilfered the tracks from to create the video nasties that just assaulted my ears.
(1/10 Matt Mason)
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