Wednesday 13: mouthful title but ghoul-crisp tunes

The inevitable break Murderdolls have had to take due to Joey Jordison’s stiskman duty with Slipknot was used by the band’s singer Wednesday 13 to invest time in a solo album. The resulting artefact is ‘Transylvania 90210: Songs of Death, Dying and The Dead’, a collection of songs that ups the Murderdolls debut disc’s ante.

The band’s sabbatical has resulted in unleashing a darker, harder, stronger, more humorous and more fun disc. ‘Transylvania 90210: Songs of Death, Dying and The Dead’ is brimming with tunes that move limbs, engage head[banging] and overwhelm spirits, the ghosts and ghouls in all of us… It is a cathartic record [for its maker] in the same sense science fiction is: you can criticise, caricature current time and public figures and nobody takes any notice by discounting it as the ‘horror genre’.

Just listen to ‘Elect Death For President’, it is surely about the current occupier of the White House, G-Dub, but W13 can also claim it being - fiction. Dressed in black and made-up as a Zombie-extra in a Hollywood B-flick, W13 creates a sonic world that is entertaining, an escapist fun. It continues the tradition of Alice Cooper, Twisted Sister, Rob Zombie and WASP but it is neither too far from The Cramps with the tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top imagery and presentation.

That doesn’t take away anything from it being a reality without ESP-experiences, real ghost mansions, a ghouls’ conference in a nearby cemetery... It is as real as tabloid stories and that’s where its true value lies: you don’t have to believe in after-life, anti-living, or eternally - W13 admitted to us [in an interview soon to hit these ‘pages’] not knowing anything about any ‘beyond’. Gothic it may be but it is like a Boris Karloff’s movie.

Mostly recorded solely by W13 - band touring members haven’t been assembled before the album was canned - and thus it parades with more of a cohesive feel. It is not a concept but 13 songs to thrill, entertain and wow with promise of mindless bliss! There are a lot of highlights here but our preferred cuts currently are ‘Haunt Me’, ‘Buried By Christmas’, ‘Rot For Me’, ‘A Bullet Named Christ’…

Wednesday 13 has reconstructed the Frankenstein’s Monster that looks very much like one of ‘The Munsters’.

13, out of thirteen, obviously!

Tour dates (remaining):

15 April - Cathouse, Glasgow
16 April - Rock City, Nottingham