Fang Bang

Horror rock has been around for a long time. From "Monster Mash" to the Cramps and the Misfits to White Zombie, the genre is at its best when the artist in question is in on the joke . For every Lux Interior there's a Marilyn Manson, and thankfully in the case of Wednesday 13, former Frankenstein Drag Queen andMurderdolls frontman Joseph Poole represents the latter. This is punk rock filtered through the whiskey-soaked crotch of the late-'80s Los Angeles hair metal scene, and it owes as much to Mötley Crüe and Faster Pussycat as it does Black Sabbath or Screaming Lord Sutch & the Savages. Poole fuses Green Day melodicism with pop-metal on the rousing opener "Morgue Than Words," creates a new "horned hand" anthem with the brutal and dumb "Faith in the Devil," and even throws in a salute to the king of "Zombie" rock Roky Erickson on a cover of "Burn the Flames," an obscure cut from 1985's brilliant Return of the Living Dead soundtrack. Fang Bang wasn't created with even the slightest intention of reinventing the genre, but like its' sonic counterpart, Andrew W.K.'s Party Hard, it's got the hooks, the energy, and a big stupid smile on its face that's impossible to ignore. This is the soundtrack to the brain-eating dog days of summer.