Karloff – Revered by Death (Blackened Ghoul Punk)
Certain genres refuse to extricate themselves from the fetters of decades ago. I guess it’s a one part nostalgia, one part fear of the new. I’ve seen this phenomenon in hardcore, rockabilly, and especially horror punk. The last example is notorious for this, as doowop vampires have been around for awhile, stemming from the “Monster Kid” generation that came out of the 1950s and still acting like there’s bite to archetypal vampires. At first, those ideas had their place when the original contexts were still fresh. Now they just feel dusty, and nothing you’d want to dust off. Time to leave them in the attic to enter the real horrors of life around us. Enter Germany’s Karloff, who for almost a decade have been steeping their infection of blackened punk into a nasty, gangrenous mass that pulsates instead of bursts. We’re done with midnight stumbles through cemeteries. At this point that’s child play, we’re on to unearthing the bodies therein, taking their skin, and making a foul mockery of two-stepping with actual bloodshed.
Revered by Death is an hypnotic streetlight flickering before the stab, and as you die you get to see the half-being lapping at the fluids. Production-wise Karloff still present a great lo-fi aesthetic characteristic to their sound, especially those slightly backend, ugly vocals that move the listener from Return of the Living Dead to Part 3. A corrosive fuzz covers most of the music, with the exception of an atmospheric interlude, and the band’s momentum remains permanently grim, but not in the way of Collegeville costume tackiness. Their work feels genuinely terrifying, not skipping those much-needed hooks, elevating horror punk from kitsch to chaos.
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Karloff – Revered by Death
Dying Victims Productions
Cover Art: Lena Richter
4.3 / 5
