Wednesday, October 31, 2007

So Sick It Hurts: Calabrese - "The Traveling Vampire Show"

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Happy Halloween, ghoulish minions of BfoH! We here at the Belly hope you all got enough candy to rot out your teeth and enough scares to sleep in your parents' bedroom! In celebration of a most righteous holiday, I have decided to do a review on horror punk dynamos Calabrese and their most recent album The Traveling Vampire Show. Put in your plastic fangs, you little bastards!

To begin, it needs to be made clear that Calabrese are probably the best horror punk band currently in existence. That alone should make you want to check them out, but if you're greedy, like most of you are, and want more reason to dial into their spookiness, keep reading.

Not that it comes as any surprise, but this trio of phantoms (actually all brothers with the last name of, you guessed it, Calabrese) brings blood-curdling lyrics involving werewolves, vampires, and other monsters to their songs. There are plenty of clips from old horror movies as well, and that is always sexy, especially if you know what movies they are from! (Fun fact: Their first album, 13 Hallowe'ens, took most of the clips from the original House on Haunted Hill. Can anyone say, "Vincent Price"? I sure can. The man was a god.) Also true to form, there are plenty of doo-wop sing along choruses and straight-up punk hooks. It's hella! As anyone who listens to horror punk can assume, the sound is close to, but not exactly like, that Misfits band I keep hearing about. They were all like, jamming around 50 years ago or some shit.

Point is, horror punk is fucking rad, and Calabrese is the best in the genre. The songs are fun and catchy like all horror rock should be, and the lyrics are spooktacular. It's just a great album. Make sure to check out 13 Hallowe'ens while you're at it, because that record is another that I wore down from repeated listening. Don't forget to catch them live if you can, too. I saw them and they were rowdy and fantastic. All around good guys, I say.

Check out the video for "Voices of the Dead." It's great. But watch out for zombies!

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