CD Review: CARNIVAL ARCANE by MIDNIGHT SYNDICATE

Some of you might recognize the band Midnight Syndicate from the 4H review of their film, THE DEAD MATTER a while back  (see review here).  Well, Midnight Syndicate is back with a brand new CD entitled, CARNIVAL ARCANE. For those of you not familiar with Midnight Syndicate, here is a little bit about them from their official website:

For the past fourteen years, dark music pioneers Midnight Syndicate have been creating Halloween music and gothic, horror, fantasy soundtracks for the imagination. Formed by composer/director Edward Douglas in 1995, their music has become a staple of the Halloween, gothic music, haunted attraction, and role-playing game industries. With a catalog of CDs that blend dark, orchestral horror and fantasy movie score-style music with sound effects, the band consisting of Edward Douglas and Gavin Goszka has had its soundtracks to imaginary films featured in everything from Hugh Hefner's infamous Halloween parties, Barbara Walters specials and Monday Night Football to X-Box games, tracks by the Academy-Award winning rap act, Three Six Mafia, as well as concerts by dark music pioneers The Misfitsand King Diamond. The music has also been featured on countless television shows and documentaries relating to horror films and the supernatural.

Midnight Syndicate's latest CD, CARNIVAL ARCANE, is the band's fourteenth studio album.   The theme for this album is a dark carnival theme and the band does a wonderful job of capturing the sounds of the carnival, well, all the spooky sounds of the carnival at least!  

I like that in the description it says they create "fantasy soundtracks".  That is a perfect description of this CD.   Listening to CARNIVAL ARCANE is like listening to the soundtrack of a cool horror film.   As I listened to the CD on my way to and from work today, I couldn't help but imagine in my head a scene that would fit the sound of the song that was playing. 

The CD is mainly just instrumental music, basically like a score to a horror film.  A lot of the songs I can picture being the opening song of a film as the credits are displayed, or the end song as the credits scroll.   The song Welcome To The Carnival would be a perfect opening song for a film.  One of my favorite songs, the perfectly titled Dr. Atmore's Elixirs of Good Humor and Fortification, is a catchy fun tune with a beautiful background melody. Lights Out made me picture a woman being chased through the woods by a masked killer, and Kiddieland is just totally creepy!  Never have kids laughing and singing sounded so scary!   This is just a few of the great tracks on this CD, there are 26 tracks total, so you are definitely getting your money's worth with this one!

While some are just cool, spooky sounding songs, some are very beautiful songs that could easily be used as  title music for a big budget, blockbuster film.  Yet even in the songs with a nice classical sound,  the band still manages to sneak some creepy things into it...whether it be a creepy whisper or voice, or just a creepy chord or sound. 

I highly recommend you go check out Midnight Syndicate's homepage and pick up a copy of CARNIVAL ARCANE and some of their other CDs.  I think all horror fans will enjoy this music for sure!


CLICK HERE to visit Midnight Syndicate's official website
CLICK HERE to purchase Carnival Arcane and other CDs and Merchandise
CLICK HERE to visit Midnight Syndicate's official Facebook Page

CD Review: VESSELS OF WRATH: AND WE SHALL TAKE UP SERPENTS

While not deeply rooted in Horror, I still feel the need to share a review of AND WE SHALL TAKE UP SERPENTS by the metal group VESSELS OF WRATH (V.O.W.). Metal music seems to go hand in hand with the Horror genre in many ways, and this Industrial/Metal group is one of the best in the metal genre...plus this is a just a damn good album I think you all should know about!
AND WE SHALL TAKE UP SERPENTS is V.O.W.'s follow up CD to their first album, 'TIS NOW STRUCK TWELVE: THE SHAPE OF GOTH TO COME. This follow-up CD shows tremendous growth from the group as true artists, with a wider range of sounds and different types of singing, from sections of spoken word, as heard in the song AMERICAN GOTHIC, to the more melodic singing in the 80's Sisters Of Mercy cover, LUCRETIA MY REFLECTION. Lead singer Matt Yeager does a superb job of switching between melodic singing to typical Metal "roaring", as I call it, with such grace and ease. It is seamless as he switches between the types of singing which is very impressive. Yeager is supported by a cast of extremely talented musicians. Maria Ellen Martinez's soft vocals are a nice compliment to Yeager's rougher voice. The Keyboard and synthesized sounds are great and the guitars and drums on this CD are as good as any "big name" metal group I have heard. Just listen to the opening of BATTLE HYMN OF THE REDUNDANT and you will see what I am talking about. Do yourself a favor and get this great CD. You can purchase it from the link below for only $10 which includes shipping!

VESSELS OF WRATH IS:

Lead vocals- Matt Yeager
Vocals- Maria Ellen Martinez
Keyboard/programing/vocals- Daniel Mcabe
Drums- Bryan Upton
Guitar- Blakely Upton
Guitar/vocals- Caleb "Jib" Shaner
Bass/vocals- Caleb Schoeppe

CLICK HERE to purchase AND WE SHALL TAKE UP SERPENTS for only $10 (shipping included!!)
CLICK HERE to go to the official website of VESSELS OF WRATH
CLICK HERE to go to the VESSELS OF WRATH Myspace page
CLICK HERE to go to the VESSELS OF WRATH Facebook page