Carpeduke
Hell Gothic Ride ()
Wydane przez Self-financedRok wydania 2013Kraj GermanyNapisał Wouter7
Oh please, I’m not nearly drunk enough to enjoy this. So, here’s a quick question for you all in the meantime. If an artist has released four albums independently up to this point, and there’s no label interest – wouldn’t it be sensible to pack things up and call it a day? Not that I have something against Carpeduke himself. No. Apparently this is the creative collaboration between one Steffen Herzog, a German rock singer renowned for his black humour and fluency in six languages and producer Ron Reid Gardner. Who? I know. I was scratching my head too. Am I supposed to know this guy? Anyway, “Hell Gothic Ride” is, as the title rather cleverly suggests, an album’s worth of pseudo-gothic, semi-industrial spooky alternative metallic rock that is equal parts Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie/White Zombie as it is latter-day Type O Negative and Sisters Of Mercy, at least vocally. Odin knows I like this stuff well enough when I’m in the right mindset, or feeling particularly forgiving. I could write an entire review lambasting how this is record is musically redundant and neigh on two decades late to a movement that was popular in the mainstream for all of five minutes. I’m not going to do that here. In 1995/96 this would have hit the alternative charts in a big way. Just saying. As patently ridiculous and utterly silly as this record is, I’m actually enjoying it in all its cheesy glory. Imagine how much better this thing sounds when you are drunk, or high on grass. Holy crap. Now that’s an idea for the weekend, isn’t it? A promo video was shot for the track ‘Vampyre’, and it has the subtlety and coherence of the average Jésus Franco or Jacinto Molina/Paul Naschy horror movie of the 1970s. The girl singer is hot and very saucy in it, though. So, let me close up this hastily written review by saying this. “Hell Gothic Ride” is funny, very funny. It’s not exactly the thing that stands up to close examination or intense scrutiny, but sometimes you just want to hear something as stupid and demented as this. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended up being the soundtrack to some shot-on-video gothic flick or some backyard shoestring budget splatter production. Anyhow, I have been rambling incoherently enough now. I better close this up...
www.cdp-music.com
