Gruesome Joe’s Musical Morgue

Full Moon Archive, Disc 2 Review

Listen up Deadites! Gruesome Joe here with the latest installment of the Musical Morgue, right here on Rotting Flesh Radio.

This week I’m following up with the second installment of my two-part review of the Full Moon Archive Music Collection, this week bringing you my take on the second disc from the set.

Those that caught the last show probably recall that the first disc of the album got two stumps up from me—it’s a great collection of some of the main title tracks from several of Full Moon’s best and most successful films.  The second album offers a completely different take on Full Moon’s catalog.  Disc 2 of the set features the full-length recordings of some of their new songs from their more recent films.

Now, die-hard fans of Full Moon are probably going to love it.  You can now have these songs available right on your iPod or whatever, and can rock out while building your new haunt props, or blast it in the backstage area of your haunt to get your cast and crew pumped up.  Any way you slice it, the songs on this second disc are a lot of fun.

Fans of the film Blood Dolls will be especially pumped, because three of the albums ten songs come from it; the songs being Pain, Drain, and You’re Going Down.

(Pain clip)

And if you’re a fan of the recent Evil Bong series, you’ll enjoy the ridiculously appropriate track Wicked Weed.

(Wicked Weed clip)

Now, in regards to the songs more in and of themselves, there were only two that really stood out to me musically, those being the opening track of the album entitled Oblivion and the second being the sixth track on the album entitled I Can’t Help This.  Both songs are vocally reminiscent of William Garvey’s more recent music (a la Touch The Stars—a far step from his Goodbye Horses days) but include some nice background vocal work—especially in I Can’t Help This.  However, it is the driving rock underbelly and wide synths that make Oblivion really stand out to me as my favorite song on the album.

(Oblivion clip)

Stylistically, the album is all over the place.  You have the reggae feel of Wicked Weed, and then you have the airy rock songs such as Pain, then you jump to some hip-hop in I Know You Want Me, and then some punk rock in Run Run Run, and then to some heavier rock with Footprints…

(Footprints clip)

So, overall, disc 2 of the Full Moon Archive Music Collection gets one stump up.  I think they did a good job of pulling together some fun songs from their newer films, but out of the context of the films they are in, several leave a bit to be desired.  In my opinion, and if you’ve been reading my posts at GruesomeJoe.com you already know this, but I would have preferred if they would have pulled together some more of the title tracks and background scores from some of their older works.  I personally think it would have been a bit more interesting to have the Netherworld Waltz rather than the 46-second-long track Drain from Blood Dolls.  But, like I said, it’s a fun collection of songs, especially if you are a die-hard fan of Full Moon.  I think though that the concept of an “archive” especially with a larger volume of music such as this, would have been more suited to hard-to-find tracks, or a larger amount of the more historic Full Moon tracks rather than devoting 50% of the compilation’s capacity to the modern day sounds of Full Moon.  Maybe a three-disc set would have been a better way to go…  The traditional and most favorite themes on one disc, the next disc having more hard to find and obscure Full Moon treasures, and the final containing the newest songs…

At any rate, if you would like to get yourself a copy of the collection (and I definitely think you should—if nothing else to have the great title tracks of Full Moon’s best films) you can head over to www.FullMoonDirect.com and click on their music category.  This is currently the only album available from Full Moon, so it isn’t too hard to find on their site.  You can also download it at various e-retailers such as iTunes and Amazon if you would prefer.  While you’re there, you can also check to see if the Full Moon Horror Road Show will be coming to a town near you this season—just in case you have a night off from your haunt for some raunchy Full Moon fun!

Well Deadites, that about does it for this week here in the Morgue.  Be sure to check out the written version of my review at GruesomeJoe.com, and feel free to leave any comments or questions you might have, as well as send me your band suggestions for potential reviews.  Be sure to tune in next time when I’m sure I’ll have more great tunes you just might want to add to your collection.  Until then, I’m Gruesome Joe, and I’ll be chilling out here in the Morgue, waiting for you, until next time…