Remember the 80s and their overwhelming choice of low budget horror flicks? Or if you are a little younger did you look in awe at the colourful, hand-painted covers on the big box VHS' in your video store? Oh the glory days before Netflix. Carpenter Brut has tapped into this for his latest album Leather Teeth. From it's name to the superb artwork, the album looks and feels exactly like those cherished films of your childhood. This was exactly Brut's intention when making the album: it's a story about girls, death and dirty synthesisers.
The idea is inspired by a fictional film about Bret Halford, an introverted science student. He likes a girl who doesn’t like him and prefers the team’s star quarterback. When attempting to create a potion that will allow him to control them all he ends up disfigured and decides instead to become a rock star. This is how he will seduce the girl, and all other girls: by becoming Leather Teeth, singer of Leather Patrol. It's a bit of a Spinal Tap meets The Toxic Avenger and Phantom of the Operas lovechild premise (a lot of 80s horror was this hoakey), but the music is synthtastic. The character of Bret is also a mix of Rob Halford (Judas Priest) and Bret Michaels (Poison); so bad ass, big hair, 80s camp is the order of the day for the album. Musically though, it's genius. Yes, the soundtracks really did sound this good. And there's even cassette rewinding and dodgy pitch correcting too. The album is short and sweet, but in an age when most films ran at 86 minutes, it's more than enough to propel you to raid the loft for your old VHS player, sit back and remember a time when horror made you squeal, made you laugh and the soundtracks where awesome. There's a lot of influence from Jay Chattaway, John Carpenter and Even Tryanglz and Burnin' In The Third Degree, that's the song from the terrifically tense bar scene in Terminator. Brut gives the nod to the 80s theme song with the equally memorable Beware The Beast (featuring Mat McNerney). Monday Hunt and Hairspray Hurracaine crank up the tension on the album while the opening and closing title tracks are as sonically satisfying as imagining Leather Teeth getting the girl and leaving behind a trail of 80s fake blood.
Dark synth, synth wave retro fans of DevilRazor, Isidor, retrowave are sure to love these sounds, and 80s horror fans will wish that the film was really something they could sink their (leather) teeth into!
Groupie Rating 4/5
