Halloween Countdown: October 9 – you’re a creature of destruction

One of the problems I’ve encountered in compiling tracks for this theme month is that there are certain bands who I knew were going to be featured, but I had a hard time selecting one definitive track from their back catalog. In today’s case, I gave up trying to decide, and so you, the reader, benefit from my indecisiveness with two wonderful songs from LA death rock legends 45 Grave.

Most famous (if that term can accurately be applied in their case) for providing the theme song (“Party Time”) to the relentlessly bleak horror comedy, Return of the Living Dead, 45 Grave’s output varies immensely in style and tone. The tracks on their 1983 LP, Sleep in Safety, range from semi-pretentious atonal thrash (“Insurance from God”) to stabs at gothy punk-pop (“Dream Hits II”) to cartoonish horror-punk (“Party Time”). Some of the material is hampered by Dinah Cancer’s problematic vocals. While she can certainly caterwaul like nobody’s business, she has a hard time delivering the goods on the more ambitious tracks, where a more polished vocalist with a better range might have pushed things across the border between “good” and “excellent”.

That may sound like a harsh assessment of the band, but only because I really dig what they were trying to accomplish: a home grown, harder-edged counterpart to the Britgoth sound. I spent many an hour sifting through the used vinyl bins looking for any- and everything 45 Grave related – compilations, singles, LP, bootlegs. None of it was terribly expensive, but, geez, was it ever hard to find.

Today’s two featured tracks come from 1981's Hell Comes to Your House compilation and Sleep in Safety. “Evil” is a great horrorpunk stomper, built around a kickass guitar riff (though the production is a tad on the tinny side). “Surf Bat” is a groovy-ghoulie instrumental track harkens back to the swinging mod monster scene of the 1960’s that gave us gems like the theme to The Munsters and “Dracula’s Deuce”.