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LESBIAN BED DEATH
"The Witching
Hour" (Psychophonic; 2021)
Reviewed by R. Scott Bolton
Lesbian Bed Death return with a collection of (mostly) original material on "The Witching Hour" and, like their previous releases, this album is another slab of morbid metal! (Well, according to the band, their music is "Gothic Punk meets Hard Rock with a theme of horror running throughout" which is probably more accurate.)
There's a lot of music to be found on "The Witching Hour." Fourteen tracks and nearly an hour of chunky guitars, sweetly sinister vocals, and driving rhythms. As you might guess from titles like "Bring Out Your Dead," "Mirror Demon" and "Thirteen Steps to the Gallows," the songs all fit soundly in the horror rock category, both musically and lyrically. "Sabrina" is a strutting rocker that's all about the popular teenage witch and "Chucky" is a stomping tune all about everyone's favorite serial killer doll.
My favorite tracks are the opener, "The Scorpion," which, with its cascading rock power, serves as a perfect introduction as to what's to come; the aforementioned "Sabrina," and the rollicking "Molly Leigh," which is about an English woman, accused to be a witch, and later vilified because her ghost continued to haunt the town long after her death.
A couple songs slow down the action. "Vampires" is an almost gentle number and "Tears of the Gods" is a keyboard-heavy tune that doesn't really fit the rest of the album.
"The Witching Hour" closes with a terrific cover of Cliff Richards' "Devil Woman," that ends the album perfectly.
This band has too many line-up changes to keep track of (but, for a very thorough history of the band, click here). Thankfully, they manage to maintain their unique sound and style from album to album regardless of who's playing as "The Witching Hour" proves once again.
For more information, check out http://www.lesbianbeddeath.net.
"Born to Die on VHS" (Psychophonic; 2019)
Reviewed by R. Scott Bolton
I was already excited to see the new Lesbian Bed Death cross my desktop, and even more excited when I figured out what the title, "Born to Die on VHS," referred to.
This latest album by the band with the weird name (yeah, I Googled it; you should, too) features only three original songs: "Fury," "Flesh," and the title track. All three are great tunes although "Fury" didn't have the edge to it that I would have preferred but both "Flesh" and "Born to Die on VHS" make up for it in spades. Those last two tracks might very well tear the flesh off the bone.
But I know what you're thinking ... only three original songs? How is that a good thing. Well, I'm glad you asked. The rest of the songs on "Born to Die on VHS" are cover versions of famous horror tunes, mostly from movies that you probably saw ... on VHS!
There are cover versions of songs by DOKKEN, AUTOGRAPH, WASP, MOTORHEAD, 45 GRAVE, ALICE COOPER and more, all pulled from such classic horror films as "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3," "Fright Night," "Ghoulies 2," "Hellraiser," "Friday the 13th Part VI" and more. And Lesbian Bed Death makes them their own, adding their crunchy guitar style, throat-grabbing leads, and the powerful vocals of original vocalist Luci4, who recently returned to the band.
The album ends with a theme-busting cover of Pat Benatar's "Heartbreaker" but the folks who crowd-funded the album chose it as the song they wanted to cover so it's included here as a bonus track. And guess what? Yeah, it rocks hard, too.
Would I rather have had a collection of entirely new songs from the band? Normally, I would have to say yes. But I like what Lesbian Bed Death has done here, especially for the time of year (as I'm writing this, we're two weeks away from Halloween). And there's always time for new stuff later, right?
Lesbian Bed Death: Luci4 - vocals; Mr. Peach - Rhythm guitar; Aimee Violet - drums; Dani J Rankin - lead guitar.
For more information, check out http://www.lesbianbeddeath.net.
"Designed by the Devil, Powered by
the Dead" (Psychophonic; 2010)
Reviewed by R. Scott Bolton
Lesbian Bed Death is a pretty strange name for a band, but, wow, what a band!
"Designed by the Devil, Powered by the Dead" is horror rock with a different twist. The vocalist is female with a sexy, mature sounding voice which makes her even scarier than usual. The tracks are all solid hard rock tracks, except for a couple of eerie, Goth-like numbers.
My favorite track is "No Tears Please," a track with lyrics taken entirely from the "Hellraiser" movies; lines like "Jesus Wept" and "Your suffering will be legendary even in hell" and, of course, "No Tears Please." Cool song!
A couple of the songs go out of their way to be just plain offensive and don't quite work. "Catholic Sex Kitten" is one of those examples; a song with a title and lyrics like that should have some humor to it at least and it just doesn't. Hence, it loses its appeal.
Another great thing about this CD is the disc itself which looks like the control panel on the Lament configuration—that's the box that the Cenobites use to open the door to hell. Nice packaging!
Again, though, I have to wonder about the band's name: Lesbian Bed Death? Maybe if someone out there explains it to me, I'll be okay with it. I checked Wikipedia and found something about lesbians having less sex than other couples. Interesting, maybe. The band of a name, I dunno. Let me know what you think!
For more information, check out http://www.lesbianbeddeath.net.
Rating Guide:
A classic. This record will kick your ass.
Killer. Not a classic but it will rock your world.
So-so. You've heard better.
Pretty bad. Might make a nice coaster.
Self explanatory. Just the sight of the cover makes you wanna hurl.
Copyright © 2021 by R. Scott Bolton. All rights
reserved.
