Label: Napalm Records
Release Date: Out Now
Words By Greg Walker
The self-styled Duke Of Spook is back with a vengeance, and all the clichés are intact: mid-tempo horror punk, groovy crunchy punches, creepy crawly melodies, trademark raspy vocals that sound like his throat is lined with gravelly grave dust. And I couldn’t be happier.
Wednesday 13’s prolific career has been a story of many projects, most notably his Murderdolls partnership with the late Joey Jordison, a founder of Slipknot among others. Murderdolls’ success was the platform for Wednesday 13 to launch a storied solo career, culminating in his latest album Mid Death Crisis, his most comprehensive release over the last decade. Wednesday sounds positively reinvigorated; celebrating the Murderdolls catalogue on recent tours has obviously inspired this material, a return to form effectively digging Wednesday 13’s solo career out of the grave as far as my attention is concerned.
Musically, nothing is surprising here, except for how instantly catchy and upbeat the atmosphere is. A deft master at turning a seemingly silly play on words into an entire song, Mid Death Crisis opens with a trademark turn of phrase in Decease and Desist, showcasing his natural ability to bring a clever witticism to fruition as an entire song. Proof that flipping a concept is nothing new, In Misery is an anti-love song from the opposite experience. Leaving the spooky Scooby-Doo angle aside momentarily, In Misery backs up my long-term claim that Wednesday is at his best when putting the gimmick aside and focusing inward, the result rendering the second single an album highlight.
The gimmick is effective, though, the dumb, glorious fun of Decapitation playing off against the serious nature of In Misery. My teenage daughter noted Decapitation is very similar to Murderdolls’ Summertime Suicide in its vibe, and doesn’t veer far from the path set by the bouncy drive during its runtime, but it doesn’t need to. Backed by clever syllabic deliveries and hooky melodies, Decapitation harks back to Wednesday’s earlier works with the Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13 and Murderdolls.
When The Devil Commands is similar in execution, the entire tune driven by a locked-in-solid, rousing headbanging groove. The first single doesn’t seek to reinvent the wheel, and noticeably borrows a cool line from Wednesday’s earliest works with the FDQFP13, another fun characteristic of his material over the years: rediscovering older releases through the new, inserting a previous lyric and hook a genius tactic to remind older fans of bygone favourites. Case in point is My Funeral, sounding like it’s based heavily off the Frankenstein Drag Queens’ song Evil Is Good, another super big groove foot tapper peppered with vintage Wednesday references.
Proof this material is a return to form is a reworking of 2014’s standalone Xanaxtasy; hearing the upgraded version feels right at home here, really cemented as an essential inclusion on this record. Brandishing a much bigger anthemic delivery, Xanaxtasy’s new verse lyrics add a more refined defeatist angle, and the modern production makes it feel like peak Murderdolls. Third single No Apologies (feat. Faster Pussycat’s Taime Downe who sounds like a clean Wednesday when side by side) is a cracking classic glam punk anthem with all the wonderful stereotypes in place: choppy riffage, hooks for days, egotistical soloing inserted all over the place. Fantastic tune.
Mid Death Crisis is actually everything I’d hoped for in this release, packed with pacey guitar-driven ditties delivered with a snappy comic book sense of fun. It’s Mattel Rock, but some of us love to collect reminders of our childhood – toys, movies, music, it’s all the same thrill. Wednesday 13 has a wicked sense for writing entertaining little soundtracks all unique to one another, tying in vivid little screenplays within each episode of his aural Twilight Zone.
Again, Mid Death Crisis is a much stronger affair than the last handful of albums put together, reinvigorated creative juices delivering a spirited album flaunting Wednesday 13’s innate musical sixth sense for horror punk.
