792. Rocket From The Crypt - Scream Dracula Scream (1995)

Track Listing

1. Middle
2. Born In '69
3. On a Rope
4. Young Livers
5. Drop Out
6. Used
7. Ball Lightning
8. Fat Lip
9. Suit City
10. Heater Hands
11. Misbeaten
12. Come See, Come Saw
13. Salt Future
14. Burnt Alive

Review

Well this is an interesting album, I must say because I had the gargantuan Mellon Collie to listen to just before this I probably did not listen to it as often as I should, but one thing is true, it has enough immediately hooky songs to have stuck on my mind.

A cool thing about this band is the use of brass in a punky context, this really gives an extra kick to such songs as Born in '69 or On a Rope. It also gets points because John Reis is the son of a Portuguese fisherman... and that's about as close as we'll ever get to Portuguese music on this list (with the exception of Brazilian music which is in the same language).

That said this album is a great complement to Smash by Offspring and Dookie by Green Day as a completely different kind of punk resurgence in the mid 90s. This is in fact considerably more original music, even if not as immediately attractive or consistently good. At times it sounds like a heavy Elvis Costello (Heater Hands) and at other times like British Glam with noise and that is perfectly OK with me. So, not great or amazing but good album.

Final Grade

8/10


Track Highlights

1. On A Rope
2. Misbeaten
3. Born in '69
4. Heater Hands

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Scream, Dracula, Scream! was Rocket from the Crypt's most ambitious recording to date. Using the extensive recording budget granted them by Interscope, the band employed numerous guest musicians, a string section, additional engineers and mixing sessions, and experimented with several instruments they had not used before. According to the album's liner notes the album was rehearsed and recorded over a 2-month period, with the basic tracks recorded live on a 4 track machine and overdubs of the backing vocals and orchestra recorded later. The album's title was taken from the lyrics of a Wesley Willis song.

The album's liner notes also state that the band intended Scream, Dracula, Scream! to consist of one cohesive body of music, with traditional silence between track separations replaced with string, woodwind, and brass passages. However, Interscope demanded a more standardized album so the master tapes were cut and edited into traditional-length tracks.

On A Rope: