Gruesome Joe’s Musical Morgue

'Morbid Melodies' Review

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

As we’re all getting ready for the fast-approaching haunt season, putting the final touches on the sets, rigging the lights, and most importantly—wiring for music and sound, I wanted to introduce to you a great haunt composer that you might not have heard of before.  Those of you familiar with, or who have visited, Kevin McCurdy’s Haunted Mansion have already heard his music ringing through the hallways for a number of years now, and he has left quite a mark on the gaming and film music world as well.  I’m talking about the one and only Frank Petruccelli of Petruccelli Productions.  The album up on the slab this week is his most recent release for the haunted attraction industry: Morbid Melodies.

Now, prior to the release of Morbid Melodies, Petruccelli had released several albums including two with music featured at McCurdy’s Haunted Mansion, as well as another album of music specifically for haunted attractions called Music To Die For.  In listening through his entire collection, I found that Morbid Melodies featured some of the best orchestral tracks and technically sound recordings as well as had a nice variety of pieces that you could use in all sorts of different rooms throughout your haunt.

So—let’s get to the music!

The album starts off with the very gothic track “No Escaping Purgatory.”  The track has a very synthesized feel in a very epic-sounding style.  A track like this would make a good underscoring to a room that featured someone speaking or an engaging enactment of some sort.

The next track, called “Garden of Evil,” continues with the synthesized vocal orchestrations, but utilizes a much smoother mixed in female vocal element that gives the piece a very ghostly presence.  I liked this track much better than the first.

(“Garden of Evil” clip)

We are then launched into a very grand piece entitled “Celeste’s Curse” which utilizes a very nice sounding pipe organ in addition to reeds, bells, and strings to produce a very nice, very spooky waltz.

(“Celeste’s Curse” clip)

We then come to the eerily delightful track “Restless Sleep.”  This track is predominantly ambient, utilizing a droning underscoring to help build tension.  Along with this, there are mixed in sound effects and percussive elements that helped to further the tension and suspense.  I really liked this track because it had similar nuances to the scores from the old Italian horror movies by Lucio Fulci.

(“Restless Sleep” clip)

The next track “March Into The Lair” is a very bombastic march performed on pipe organ with incredibly loud cymbals.  I’m not entirely sure if this mix was intentional, but the cymbal crashes are a bit overbearing at times, especially coming from the quieter middle portion of the piece.

We are then taken back into the high-creep-factor mode with the sixth track of the album “Creepin.”  This song is very similar to “Restless Sleep” in that it is a softer piece, but maintains the eerie nature with great mixing and light orchestration.  Again, this piece reminded me of the Fabio Frizzi scores from the Lucio Fulci films—especially in the use of effects on the piano and bass lines.

(“Creepin” clip)

The next track is a very fun track called “Suspense 101.”  This song features a very ominous string section underscored with a neat electronic beat.  It’s almost as if it was a classic 1930’s horror film score remixed over a light drum machine.  This track would be great for a room that was a little lighthearted and fun.

(“Suspense 101” clip)

The next track “Darkness Descends” brings an end to the suspenseful tracks on this portion of the album and introduces us to a more fantastical style with the following four tracks: “Grimmer Fairy Tale Intro,” “Poor Muffet,” “Grimmer Fairy Tale Interlude,” and “Grimmer Fairy Tale Ending.”  You can tell right away that these tracks were meant to go together and offer an interesting through-story with the music.  I’m not the biggest fan of the spoken track “Poor Muffet” mainly because I find words with haunt audio (unless customized to your show) can be bit limiting and harder to incorporate.  But, given the fantastical nature of a haunted house, really anything goes—especially if you have a children’s room theme, or even a fairy tale theme.  My favorite of these four tracks was definitely “Grimmer Fairy Tale Ending.”  I loved this track because it was a gloriously mixed track with lots of ambiance, very cool pulsing effects work, and a just enough musicality to tie it all together.  The only down side is that it is, sadly, only 50 seconds long…

(“Grimmer Fairy Tale Ending” clip)

We’re then taken out of fairy land and into outer space with “The Visitor.”  It is a nice track that uses bits of silence throughout, with a constant pulsing bass.  To accentuate the other-worldliness, Petruccelli uses lots of nice, slow washes and sweeps of various synth pads on top of this pulsing bass to really make the track stand out.

(“The Visitor” clip)

We then come up to two tracks that are coupled: “The Biscuit Factory Intro” and “The Biscuit Factory.”  I again didn’t like “The Biscuit Factory Intro” because it is an entirely spoken track coming in at just over a minute long.  I wouldn’t have much use for a track like this outside of my Halloween party—but if you’re purchasing this album to use for your party, then I’m sure it will fit in great.  The second track though, “The Biscuit Factory,” is a great piece of industrial inspired noise and synths all running over the top of a good driving beat.  This track I enjoyed a lot because it sounded like it was taken right out of a movie—the production quality and mixing were excellent and the usefulness of a track like this for a haunted house is absolutely stellar.

(“The Biscuit Factory” clip)

The last track on the album, “Rituals,” is a nice gothic piece using a lot of ambient noises, dark effects, and a background of choir-like orchestration.  It sounds as if it were recorded in a vast, cavernous church or something similar.  This is a great ending track for Morbid Melodies because it left me feeling a bit creeped out and wanting to hear more.

(“Rituals” clip)

So overall, I give this album two bloody stumps up here in the Morgue.  Petruccelli really shows off his guns when it comes to horror orchestration and excellent production quality with Morbid Melodies, and I think the album is far more applicable for use in a haunted attraction than many other CDs available out there.  He covers many bases with his music; having tracks that would work well for example in a gothic church, or an alien abduction scene, or a vampires lair, or a village of angry ogres—pretty much everything is covered here.  It’s not often that I find an album that covers so much ground and yet maintains a steady stream of consciousness throughout that is able to tie all the tracks together as well as Frank has.  You can easily tell that the years and years Frank has spent working in haunted attractions and composing for them has come to fruition within this great album.  Not to mention, but this album makes a great stand-alone CD to just play through and enjoy all in one sitting.

So, you should get yourself a copy of Morbid Melodies, especially now that we’re coming right up into the haunting season.  If you haven’t gotten your music yet for your haunt—now is the time to get your order in so Frank can have it to you well before you open your doors!  You can get the album, as well as listen to Petruccelli’s other works, by visiting www.MusicToDieFor.net, or by visiting www.cdbaby.com/artist/frankpetruccelli, or by heading over to iTunes and looking up “Frank Petruccelli.”  All his albums are just $13 and are well worth it.

It is also good to note that Petruccelli Productions does not charge any licensing fees to use his music within your haunted attraction.  All you need to do, if you want to use his music for your haunt, is to visit his website at www.MusicToDieFor.net and send him an email letting him know that you’re going to be using his music at your haunt.  He does ask that you provide a link to his website on your website and to please include his website URL on any posters or other promotional materials you create.  Outside of those small, fairly standard industry requests, you’re well on your way to a spectacularly orchestrated season, and a lot of very affordable and unique music.

Well Deadites, that about does it for this week here in the Morgue.  Be sure to check out www.GruesomeJoe.com to read my review in full, as well as to find the all the links to Petruccelli Productions.  Be sure to tune in next time when I’m sure I’ll have more great music that you’ll 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…