Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Crucified Barbara
Label: GMR Music Records
Release: 2009
Length: 40:25
Rating: 4/5
Even though this lineup of four hellish fillies from Sweden has more than 10 springs under its belt, it's only now, this year, dragged its second studio album to the surface. The girls needed a whole 4 years for it. Why such a gap, I don’t know, but it was worth the wait.
With their second album, Crucified Barbara confirm the credibility they marked their arrival with on the 2005 debut “In Distortion We Trust”. In its dirty, razor-edged rock n’ roll sermon, the band has grown up a notch and shed its early naivety. The songs feel more ruinous, more furious and bouncy, louder, with a slightly better-judged studio sound. The guitars carry a full, lower-tuned sound that cuts wildly through the mix. They come across white-hot, alive, and true to the band’s character, spreading a rebellious sense of unyielding, arrogant assault. The bass is cranked thick and voluminous and rips relentlessly across the whole album. The drums roll in chunky and drive the band’s machinery, letting it cash in on its rock n’ roll schooling at full range. Blackened Bones is just the right title for something that tears your ears off and floods your blood with adrenaline-fueled speed amid dramatic debauchery! Believe me. There’s no retreat, no letting up! Crucified Barbara are even bold enough to drop in three-part harmonies in places, or short guitar solos, but none of it manages to cover up the dirty, rockin’ authenticity at the band’s core. The sound destroys! Danger Danger is in this respect surely the rockiest story on the album (in the verses the girls run a metaphorical game through the entire rock universe, from Cinderella to…). “This is fuckin’ sick” – I can’t put it any other way, and the closing Feels Like Death will squeeze the last drops of life juice out of you!
Singer Mia’s vocals couldn’t be better in their approach. The woman comes in with a full run-up, delivers loads of melody — I’d say the bulk of the melody in the Crucified Barbara sound. Her voice comes across brazen, lustful, tempting, and sometimes she deliberately pesters you with a punkish edge. Mia is dangerous, caustic, and at moments can go downright hellishly berserk (just listen to the opening scream in Creatures). All of it is crowned by the feeling that her vocals are decked out in maximum, polished authority, using full lung capacity, with not a whiff of skimping on the explosives.
At its core, the band is rock n’ roll. It carries punk influences, since the original Crucified Barbara actually played punk rock. The melodic cosmetics tie them to hard rock, while the look and the character (the vibe) call irreversibly to an underground mindset that pulls the best out of sleaze rock. The noisy “flying metal shavings” of the brisk riff-driven approach naturally point to a close flirtation with metal. Crucified Barbara are the real “dirtbags”, who know why they are the way they are and why they want to stay that way. Even though the girls swear by one and only one vibe, which doesn’t stray far from the mapped-out philosophy of dirty rock n’ roll “drive” (it’s not hard to tell they love listening to Motorhead too), “Till Death Do Us Party” is a record that keeps you stirred up the whole way through and promises a lot in its dynamic development over the running time, thanks to the fact that the songs are still varied enough within the basic “vibe” limits of rock n’ roll. Sex Action, for instance, pulls the best out of combining the approaches of unbridled rock n’ roll swagger with melodic rock cosmetics, one that brings fans of bands à la Pretty Boy Floyd under its wing, dosed in just the right amounts of perfect compatibility, born for an aggressive “single” that sucks you in instantly. Something similar is conjured up later on the album by a song like Can’t Handle Love.
Crucified Barbara aren’t on stage and in the studio just to provoke with their femininity and erotic sex appeal. No. The girls are excellent musicians, each one fully competent in her own role. That’s why the band’s energy radiates an incredible unity on the new album too, and a sense that the girls are tuned to the same wavelength, breathing as one for a common cause. With that kind of approach, rock n’ roll won’t leave you in the lurch either, and even less will it disappoint fans of the arrogance and daring content of rock n’ roll, mixed with modern touches that draw the best from the crackling debauchery of hard rock, sleaze, punk and metal. “Till Death Do Us Party” is a pact with the devil! It’s a true rock perversion!
Lineup
Mia Coldheart – vocals, guitar
Klara Force – guitar
Ida Evileye – bass
Nicki Wicked – drums
Production
Mats Leven & Crucified Barbara
Track list
1. Killer On His Knees (3:58)
2. Pain And Pleasure (3:37)
3. Sex Action (2:59)
4. Creatures (3:45)
5. Jennyfer (3:49)
6. Dark Side (3:43)
7. Can’t Handle Love (3:32)
8. Blackened Bones (4:02)
9. Danger Danger (3:32)
10. Rats (3:52)
11. Feels Like Death (3:32)
