Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

Zombina and the Skeletones

Death Valley High

Label: Ectoplastic Release Date: 11/12/2006

19054
holliy by holliy December 7th, 2006

Not sure what genre to choose to soundtrack your tale of a 'teenage horror-addict psycho' and a 'hunky mad scientist' meeting up at a Devo concert and winding up 'destroying the school… and the world… with lasers'? Well: why not go on a hyperactive rollercoaster ride through as many of them as take your fancy at any given point in time, and then mash them all up into surf-rock-doo-bop-synth-pop-harmonising-HammerHorror-just-about-targeted chaos!

Well, why not? It’s worked for Zombina and the Skeletones, after all.

This is the Skeletones’ second full-length album, and is possibly their first release not to feature anything undead. Instead, it sticks to the more realistic Dissolvo Death Ray concept, which in the hands of a young lady deranged by unrequited love and too many B-movies creates the kind of carnage that can only be adequately represented by arcade-game waves of synthesisers. Well – synths with a bit of help from crunching guitars and _“Everybody’s gonna die! Eeverybody’s gonna die!” _call-and-response vocal harmonies.

And once again, as the record fizzes, bubbles, soars and poses its way through 32 minutes of electro-surf joy, we are forced to conclude that it’d be really fucking hard to trump Zombina and the Skeletones as purveyors of trashy horror thrills – and that the world would be a far more enjoyable place if more people tried to. Although I often hear songs and think,_ “Yep, I’d dance to that in the disco”_, not much is so subconsciously, intuitively danceable that you’re halfway through the album before you even realise you’re engaged in some kind of slightly undignified chair-jive.

Still, it’s not like anyone was watching. And hell: it’s not as if the fact that I did so has in any way been placed upon an international medium of information dispersal for the whole world to see, is it now?

Oh. Right. Bugger.

  • 8
    's Score
Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing


  • Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alternative must sees



Left-arrow

Rolo Tomassi

Rolo Tomassi EP

Mobback
18096
14384

Cortney Tidwell

Missing Link

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145
  • news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143

    news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141
  • news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139

    Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138
  • Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137

    Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
  • Festival Review


    Way Out East: DiS Does Sharpe Festival 2019

  • 106135
MORE


    news


    The Neptune Music Prize 2016 - Vote Now

  • 103918
  • Takeover


    The Winner Takes It All

  • 50972

    Takeover


    10 Things To Not Expect Your Record Producer To...

  • 93724
  • review


    The Mars Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium

  • 4317

    review


    Sonic Youth - Nurse

  • 6044
  • feature


    New Emo Goth Danger? My Chemical Romance confro...

  • 89578

    feature


    DiS meets Justice

  • 27270
  • news


    Our Independent music filled alternative to New...

  • 104374
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND