Wednesday 13 will probably hate this being said but he and his band of ghouls are definitely reliable. Whether it be the time travelling shows back to the days of the Murderdolls or Wednesday 13’s solo output, there is no shortage of giving people what they want and never any less than the full 100%
While previous album, 2022’s Horrifier bore some pandemic reflection, the Duke Of Spook throws his full weight into his punkier roots and overlays it with some ’80s glam-sleaze as an extra decayed cherry on top for his tenth outing Mid Death Crisis.
Described by Wednesday himself as “leave your brains at the door”, Mid Death Crisis rockets along and is ram packed with tunes that are hook filled, gloriously OTT and is absolutely bereft of fat or filler. Naturally, little has changed in terms of Mr. 13’s gruesome word play but a track like Decapitated sticks a comedic musical head on a spike with its left field nutty doo-wop after the second chorus and the “ooh-ahhs” over the line “I want to burn your remains with kerosene…”. Never short of grave humour and gore but Mid Death Crisis does have Wednesday 13 rejuvenated and (re)animated and sleazed up which makes the record a whole lot of fun.
Mid Death Crisis is not short of the memorable. When The Devil Commands is the heaviest hitter by far and also an ode to the ‘Satanic Panic’ of the 1980s with Wednesday’s mother looking over his shoulder as to what he was listening to while the rolling guitar on the melodic My Misery taps into a toxic relationship and the punky Bloodstorm ratchets up the speedometer and with some irresitable “whoa-ohs. While there is no one track that ‘wins’ for best of the bunch, it is impossible to deny that hard rock stomper No Apologies featuring guest vocals from Faster Pussycat’s Taime Downe is certainly up there.
Wednesday 13 does not do duff albums, every record has something to offer but there is a lot of favourites from the early noughties and it has been a quarter of a century since Wednesday 13’s debut album Transylvania 90210. Mid Death Crisis is an album that does hark back to those early days.
Wednesday 13 channels everything from B-movie, Universal Monsters and vintage horror to back in the day digging into traded tapes and at the same time, skilfully movinig with music genres, blending and melting and ready to smack a smile on a corpse painted face. While fans will know what to expect, for a change there is surprises in store but for the unitiated and especially the ones that did not necessarily ‘get’ what Murderdolls was all about – this is a record gazes deep into Wednesday 13’s world and with some bells and whistles.
Still smeared in grave dirt, bats in the belfry mad and delighting in the macabre with a rictus grin – Mid Death Crisis is Wednesday 13 at his horror-punk best.
Go and get your grave on.
Wednesday 13‘s Mid Death Crisis is out now on Napalm Records
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