Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
Cthulhu Strikes Back
[self released]
The Thickets bill themselves as the world’s only Cthulhu punk band, a claim I have no doubt is accurate. Writing songs about the Cthulhu Mythos is a gimmick that could get very stale very quickly. (On the other hand, look at the mileage the Cramps got out of grade “Z” horror flicks.) The Thickets just barely escape sliding inexorably into Dr. Demento Land, saved by the fact that they play a reasonably pleasing flavor of pop-thrash-metal. Over the course of the album there comes to be a sameness about it all — a song like “Yig Snake Daddy” rips off Generic Thrash Guitar Line #572, frinstance — but one or two things on here stand out. (“Goin’ Down to Dunwich” is especially catchy.)
Check ’em out at the Thickets Page.
from Michael Wassen, http://www.io.com/~wasson/records.html,
1,000,000,000 Robots: Music Reviews, March ’96, wasson@io.com