Band: Blitzkid
Album: Five Cellars Below
Genre: Horrorpunk
Label: Fiend Force Records
Street Date: 2006
Website: www.blitzkid.com

On Five Cellars Below , Blitzkid has a lot to offer. The musical styles on the album range from the expected straight-ahead horrorpunk to gothic anthems, with elements of metal, surf and doo-wop mixed in along the way. Within this wide array of genres, the band members wisely keep their instrumentation mostly the same from song to song with only a few sonic excursions into different sounds, giving the whole album a consistency it would other wise lack. The element that provides the strongest anchor for Blitzkid and give the band its signature sound are the shared lead vocals of band leaders Argyle Goolsby and TB Monstrosity. While many other bands in this genre, such as the Horrorpops and the Coffin Nails, center their sound on the slapping of the double-bass, Blitzkid focuses on vocal harmonies. Imagine the tight duets of Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell of Alice In Chains but with more variety. Argyle and TB each take lead in some songs, sing in close harmony in others, and provide creative backing vocals to each other throughout the album. They are close in range to one another with Argyle leaning down toward baritone and TB stretching up to tenor, giving the two of them a great range when combined.

Even on the harder-edged punk and psychobilly songs, their vocal complexity serves them well. On “A Blind Bargain” Argyle takes the lead with fast, hoarse shouted vocals, but TB's background shouts give a more layered effect that hints at melodicism to come. Some songs on the album, like “The Trunk”, epitomize no-frills horrorpunk. Blitzkid is good at this kind of song, but they also expand upon this style, experimenting and playing variations on it. “Starlite Decay” shows some of this creativity with Argyle's voice ranging from a smooth tremolo to a wildcat growl. Then the double vocals make the chorus so catchy it's almost pop. The combination of toughness and sensitivity is a perfect fit for the death's-head greaser style of music, and the sax solo in this song only reinforces that with its evocation of 1950's rock n roll. The 50's style stroll of “The Torn Prince” shows that Argyle and TB have learned their doo-wop chops from that era and used it to make their music more interesting.

Songs like “Dementia” show Blitzkid stretching out beyond horrorpunk and incorporating sounds from goth music. The lead vocal of TB is more reminiscent of 80's post-punk gloom bands like Echo and The Bunnymen or Psychedelic Furs than of any rockabilly band. And the background vocals here are actual harmonies not just chants or shouts. On “Lady in the Lake ” TB goes even farther, using an echo effect to broaden his tenor. And Argyle's background vocals are pushed forward enough to nearly make this a duet. The confidence they have in their vocal dexterity is enough that the song ends with a measure of an a capella repeat of the chorus. The band's tour de force of this goth-punk hybrid style is “Carve Out a Heart.” Clocking in at just over six minutes, the song uses strings and piano to give a soaring anthemic feel, but the guitars chop out a hard rhythm that keeps the song from becoming to light.

This track is followed by the twangy “Vanishing Riders” the lyrics of which tell a kind of demonic western tale. The guitar work supports this with a surf/western riff that sounds like classic Morricone Spaghetti Westerns. Together with “Carve” these two songs close the “official” album track list (there is one hidden track at the end), giving a great testament to the instrumental creativity of the band. But it is the vocals which really make the band special. For sheer vocal virtuosity and kick-ass harmonies, no other horrorpunk band today can match Blitzkid.

by Nemo Swift
reprinted from BOFFM #4 (forthcoming)