Rock City Morgue – Some Ghouls (Antidote)
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The first, and possibly most important, thing you need to know about Rock City Morgue is that they feature shock n’ roll’s sexiest creature, Sean Yseult from White Zombie, on bass - and she still looks JUST LIKE Sean from White Zombie. Her signature low end thunder, as well as her signature low-rise jeans, corkscrew hair, and rock chick mascara are all gloriously present and accounted for. Even better, no giggly monster surf this time out- unlike her last band, the masked devil girls Famous Monsters, Rock City Morgue is no retro-goof. Instead, it’s pure sleaze rock. Sleaze metal, even, in all the right places. These swanky ghouls from New Orleans borrow the swagger and scarves from Faster Pussycat and the cock-pop of the New York Loose and amp it up to head-rattling Super Sleaze with wailing, biker-acid metal guitars (courtesy Rhoades D’Ablo, Johnny Brashear), somewhere between Monster Magnet and, well, Gaye Bykers on Acid. On top of it all is one top-hatted sumbitch by the name of Rik Slave (formerly of crazed slut-punks Man Scouts of America), who very nearly out-raunches Jagger himself on “Some Ghouls” cover of “Shattered”. This cat just oozes confidence among other things, I reckon), and he sounds enough like a well-dressed Stiv Bators to actually pull it off. Aside from the Stones redux, there’s 5 nasty-ass tracks to dig like a grave here. Opener “Beware” is all wild beast throb and garage rock rackets, “Cut You Loose” is the Dead Boys on Motley Crue’s motorcycles, “Get out of My House” is a bass-heavy creepy crawler that’s got all the slither of the Cramps and all the crunch of a CBGB’s matinee, circa 76; “Falling Apart” is a panicky sweat-epic of swooping guitars and desperate vox (and ends in blood and terror), and “Guilt Trip” (which may be a direct answer to “Falling Apart”, I dunno) is ramshackle stagger rock with those two twin super-gimmicks of any truly great rock and roll song- cowbells and handclaps. Absolutely right-the-fuck-on, “Some Ghouls” reminds me of how they used to build a rock and roll band in the good ol’ days- from the crotch up.
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