After missing last month’s review, I’ve felt pressure from my own internal expectations to meet this deadline for procurement of new music and a subsequent and intelligible review. I nearly became a repeat offender this month as my overbearing employer once again sapped the creative life force out of my body with relentless extended workdays. But a man has to put his foot down. Okay, well it’s more of a matter of just making the time to scratch out some review on something. It’s not without challenge. I’ve picked up some new music over the last two months and have had a record or two recommended to me. But for this month’s entry of "New Music Monday" I chose to go with a local act.

The album isn’t new and the band has destroyed themselves. However, that doesn’t make the album any less interesting. As a matter of fact, that’s what makes it a little intriguing. Their name, locale, and music are entertaining and moderately engaging. In a world of bubblegum pop stars that cross dress and ignore the use of ‘actual’ instrumentation while resorting to computerized repeatable rhythms and track playbacks, one must wonder, “Why can’t a band that clearly has musical chops and a new slant on previously deceased campy garage sound make it?” Must be all the coffee in Seattle.


Let’s get to the review since I must be boring you with my hypothesis on the socio-economics of popular music and its rise to fame in the kingdom of recorded audio entertainment. The band is The Murder City Devils and the album is “In the Name of Blood.”

Briefly, The Murder City Devils are a Seattle garage-punk band which either is getting back together or they’re not. That seems to be difficult to nail down. In any event, “In the Name of Blood” is new to me and I felt compelled to write about it as it has a unique, yet strangely 1960’s familiar sound.

Get it here at LaLa.com.

So the name, The Murder City Devils, gives you the impression that it might be shock rock, a la Marilyn Manson-type dark and debaucherous music delving into horrific imagery ranging from the beating deaths of old ladies to puppies getting ran over by metro transit buses. Nope. The lyrics are pretty vanilla about typical topics; love/loss, alcohol, and cowboys. About as unassuming as your little sister having a tea party with her stuffed animals. Who needs good lyrics when the delivery makes you fee like you drank a whole fifth of whiskey, broke the bottle, and then stuck your self with it. Okay, a little overdramatic, right? To a degree, yes. But the lead singer, Spencer Moody (perfect name for a punk lead singer) delivers the innocuous lyrics in a vein similar to Glen Danzig or Henry Rollins. It’s urgent, howling, and hollow. It’s the perfect delivery accompaniment for the style of music belted out by the band.

While I have labeled The Murder City Devils as garage-punk, this is merely a way for me to begin to frame their sound similar to categorizing your stuffy nose and respiratory congestion as the flu. The Murder City Devils are psychedelic and angry. So say Jim Morrison, while fronting the Doors, didn’t have issues with inebriating narcotics, was born 40 years later in a rainy gray city, and yelled his lyrics rather than slurred the words. That’s The Murder City Devils. The use of crunchy guitar distortion and spooky Farfisa toned organs makes every song is like an angry Munster’s theme song. It’s a bit campy, a bit psychedelic, and a bit of the Doors meets Danzig. Listening to the swirling organ and angry lyrics, I feel like I’m railing down a dark black and white winding wooded road in a Barris-styled roadster firing flames out the headers looking for Marilyn Munster.

“In the Name of Blood” isn’t an original album or unique in its execution. But it’s listenable and mildly addictive. The songs of the album are all roughly similar in sound, driving guitars, simple drum kit, and soaring organs, except for one, a Neil Diamond cover.

Bunkhouse – When I started to listen to this record, “Rum to Whiskey” was my favorite song. However, “Bunkhouse” quickly unseated it for my new favorite. The whole song is about unraveling myths about cowboys. Seems like a great concept to me under the guise of punk rock and organs. It goes on to say “If you don’t think that cowboys cry, you’ve never been left for a saddle or a bottle of rye.” Simple cowboy 101.

Rum to Whiskey – So maybe this song is still my favorite on the record. It’s ‘deeper’ than “Bunkhouse” but that isn’t saying much. “She was the prettiest girl in an ugly town” is about as deep as this one gets. However, the organ work on this track is eerie and the song is about alcohol and loss. This is The Murder City Devils in their ‘smash-a-bottle-across-your-head’ greatness.

I’ll Come Running – An unlistenable easy listening song by America’s biggest wedding and family reunion song artist gets covered by a screaming organ-driven garage-punk band from Seattle. It’s borderline painful to listen to much like the original. It reminds me of karaoke at a dive bar in Renton, Washington. But it’s a new take on something else.

I personally enjoy the 1960’s-retro sound with more of a punk context. I also like the sound of the Munster’s theme song gone strangely awry. Overall, The Murder City Devils are not creating a ‘new’ genre; they are just twisting a name and a sound to fit their style. There are no fatal car wrecks or drug overdoses on the album. No homicide or crime and the band or album title would lead you to believe. Just typical Seattle garage-punk rock without a real homerun in content. Disappointing? But they’re local and they’re worth a listen. I like them, whiskey, car crashes, and Marilyn Munster.