Labels: Psychophonic
Review by: Captain Fidanza
When I was about seventeen I went to see a band called Rockbitch, or at least I would have done had I been brave enough. Rockbitch were an all female metal band who took their clothes off onstage and pretended to eat each other out with pentagram tattoos all over the place. In short, they were every teenage boy’s masturbatory fantasy and though I would never denigrate this achievement, one got the distinct impression that Rockbitch were sort of doing it for a laugh.
I can only imagine that the now, sadly defunct Rockbitch once played a show in the home town of at least one member of Lesbian Bed Death and that it was such a powerful revelatory experience that they decided to devote the remainder of their life to forming a living, breathing shrine to them; minus the laughs of course.
Not that there aren’t laughs to be found here, indeed the lyrics to “Moonlight” brought to mind something that, before he died in 1998, the late Frank Muir may have included in one of his collections of humorous poetry:
I saw your girl last night
She killed herself back in December
Now she is of the night
She is cursed to live forever
She always stays out late
To hunt and drink the blood of humans
I saw your girl last night, oh yeah
She’s undead.
Like all music that makes you want to push a screwdriver into your ear simply to put an end to it’s jaw-dropping awfulness, there was a small part of me that thought this might actually be a big joke and that I was the buffoon for believing it was in anyway serious. And it was whilst listening to the song “Drowning (In Your Love)” that I had a revelation. Some sample lyrics;
I took a train to London town
A refuge for the lost and found
You turned my smile upside down
You make me want to smash up this town
If this is indeed a joke and I am the aforementioned buffoon for thinking it was real, then this has to be the single funniest joke that anyone has ever told. Remember that piece in Monty Python where that fellow wrote a joke which ended up being used as a weapon in the Second World War ? That’s the level we’re talking about here, although the world has now moved beyond the atomic age and developed something infinitely more powerful.
All of which talk of unknowable power brings me nicely to the CD cover; a photograph of a sexy lady in an all-in-one, black PVC suit holding a riding crop and standing over a more demure female sitting in a square of candles. But hang on, what’s that she’s holding ?
No.
Could it be ?
It is you know.
It’s the little puzzle box from Hellraiser. You know, the one that when you solve it, a scary door opens up and loads of crazy monsters come out and try to bite you ? So maybe the members of Lesbian Bed Death are not a joke band after all, maybe they’re not trying to plough that deep furrow of success first pioneered by Rockbitch and maybe they haven’t written the funniest joke in the world. Maybe they’re trying to open that scary portal which has light coming out of it and unleashes that rather angry man with the nails sticking out of his head.
It would certainly explain the lyrics to “Mr.Nasty-Time.”
Look out, look out
He leaves a trail of broken hearts
He’ll max out your credit card
He’ll tell you lies to fuel your dreams
But all he’ll leave you with is cream
Oh my goodness, run for your lives, protect the children and the few remaining first folios, civilization is on the brink, here come Lesbian Bed Death…
And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, “Come and see.” And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Lesbian Bed Death and Hell followed with him.
Oh and just incase you were wondering, yes, one of the songs does begin with the sound of a creaky door opening.
Ha ha ha.