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THE GHOULSTARS “The Dark Overlords of the Universe”
THE GHOULSTARS “The Dark Overlords of the Universe”
By Dr. Abner Mality
I used to have quite a liking for horror punk…indeed, for any music connected to the horror genre…but in recent years, the flood of cosplay “monster bands” has soured me on a lot of it. Everybody today loves to play dress up…we have Vikings, Ninjas, Pirates, aliens. And of course, monsters. Monsters up the wazoo. So forgive me if I’m not impressed by THE GHOULSTARS all that much.
Oddly, these guys have roots in Finnish underground death-doom, with members of KUOLEMANLAAKSO and HOODED MENACE amongst their ranks. Expect none of that here, as THE GHOULSTARS are a way for them to relive their childhood and also jump on the bandwagon of GHOST, LORDI and the like. Well, if done correctly, a dive into MISFITS style horror punk and WHITE ZOMBIE horror sludge can be entertaining.
The album starts with all the punch and vigor of a “Powerpuff Girls” cartoon. “Too Ghoul For School” is the sort of slop LORDI has been dishing out and if anything, it’s even more cleaned up and lacking bite. When you listen to classic MISFITS, there’s a lot of grime and grit in the music. Not here. “The Dead In Purgatory” is even more forgettable and “Zombie Apocalypse” is so tired in both style and substance it almost made me cry. How many fuckin’ samples from “Night Of the Living Dead” can you hear in one lifetime?!
However, the album does start to take a turn for the better (not that that was too hard to do). The title track manages to have a catchy chorus that kind of sticks in the brain and “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die” is noticeably heavier and rawer than what’s gone before. Not a bit original, but it has that grit I was talking about earlier.”Graverobbers From Outer Space” is hard to dislike with its MISFITS “whoa-oh-ohs” while “The Wolfman” and “Ballad of the Cursed Bandits” finally find THE GHOULSTARS hitting their stride with a great combination of punk catchiness and almost Swedish death metal guitar tone. An album of songs like these would have been great!
“Vampire” is not too bad, but the album ends on the same poor note it started with a lackluster “They Dance Upon Our Graves”. For a while there, THE GHOULSTARS almost had me ready to eat crow but honesty compels me to say this is another cosplay monster band and nothing that essential.
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