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Band:
Johnny Gruesome Since hair metal died a well-deserved death in the face of grunge in the early ‘90s, anyone who has wanted to play metal has had to account in some way for its unfortunate spandex, eye-liner and aqua-net period. Those in the thrash, black, and death genres have distanced themselves from it by rocking harder, faster, and more aggressively than any music in history, leaving behind the poppy choruses and power ballads of their questionable forebears. Other have jumped back in time to the BC era (“Before Crüe”) of seventies metal with its monolithic guitar riffs, thundering mastodon bass-lines, and themes of dystopian despair. Johnny Gruesome by Johnny Gruesome fits in the latter category with its mid-tempo songs and mid-range vocals that avoid the effeminate screech of the ‘80s. But the CD also has an admirable stripped down sound of single guitar, bass, and drums with few overdubs and a dearth of cock-rock solos. This purity – as close as a metal band can come to doing an unplugged album without actually unplugging – comes in part from the fact that Giasone Italiano plays almost all the instruments except drums. He and wife Marcy also penned all the songs on the CD which is actually a song-cycle inspired (mostly) by a novel by Greg Lamberson. The CD and novel are themselves parts of a multi-faceted Johnny Gruesome assault on society that includes a mini-movie, a graphic novel, artworks, and a mask. Go to www.johnnygruesome.com if you'd like to unravel all this. As Lamberson himself describes the character of Johnny at the heart of all these works, “He's a wisecracking heavy metal teenager who returns from the grave for revenge after his murder.” As Johnny's ghost animates his walking, talking, and chopping corpse, so his character also animates most of the songs on the album. After a spoken word intro pulled from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the album kicks off with “Rigor Mortis” which establishes the template for the album: a hard but loping beat, a throbbing rhythm guitar, and a memorable chorus. The songs are built around the vocal line and lyrics, and do not go in for much instrumental exploration. So the songs are surprisingly accessible, like hard-rocking sing-a-long numbers. This description works for more than half the album with the title track “Gruesome” standing out as the most successful. But there are a few variations: “Aunt Alicia” is actually a music hall number that starts out like an early century popular song but accumulates dissonant guitar picking, off-rhythm drumming, and a layering of moaning groans and screams. “Graveyard Blues” is just that, a standard bar-band electric blues number. And “Mary Whispers” is a Gorey-esque fairy tale sung-spoken by Marcy Italiano from the point of view of a girl who has committed suicide. These pieces make the album richer with their differences, but all the songs are held together thematically by the images of death and desperation, whether the songs are centered on the Johnny character or not. While the CD stands on its own, consider it a gateway drug to the whole Gruesome experience. See the mini-movie online (it's free!) and check out the artwork. I know I will be reading the novel as soon as it's available. Lamberson has already proved himself an able writer with his last novel, Personal Demons , and I am hoping for an equally exciting work in Johnny Gruesome. by Nemo Swift |
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