Review by Josh Felty
Rating: Listen!
Movie soundtracks are a musical art in and of themselves. First off, I personally hardly listen to a soundtrack until after watching the film; it's usually what entices you to pick up the assortment of music you may or may not hear throughout the show. I've got a feeling, even without viewing the flick "Drive-In Horror Show", that this soundtrack follows through the work. The movie itself is a mash-up horror anthology in the spirit of Creepshow or last year's surprise hit Trick 'r Treat, itself a dying art. With track names like "Creamskull Boogie" and "Love is a Twisted Melancholy Disease", how can you go wrong?
The beautiful aspect of this soundtrack, as with most soundtracks, are the variety of genres and influences you hear throughout. The first side is mostly rockabilly/metal send-ups. "Creamskull Boogie" is a brutal 12-bar blues clone with some hardcore punk/metal aesthetic thrown in the mix. It was probably my favorite song on the soundtrack, aside from "Hollywood Nights", which sort of took me back to early 80's retro. We even get a couple instrumental compositions to round things out, which I find refreshing for the sound of a good cinematic smorgasbord.
I was most excited to get my mitts on the special promo packaging we received for this, in a form hardly utilized by modern mainstream distribution: the vinyl LP. While I don't have a working record turntable around the house (yet) I find it quite charming the filmmakers/distributors threw in that item. I could go on all day about how records are warmer or have higher audio fidelity, but we all know the big clincher that leads one to purchase vinyl.
The album art.
And this one's no comparison to some of Led Zeppelin or Rolling Stones' record covers, but it actually isn't all that bad either. You've got shots from the flick, bloody and wildly grindhouse, pulled together by Photoshop yet not losing the charm of the piece as a whole. What you have in the end is a well-recorded, well-designed album piece that I'm sure is a worthy companion to the source creation. This definitely harkens back to the old double-feature drive-in theater exploitation films of the late 70's-early 80's while maintaining some of the more recent stylings of Rob Zombie or someone similar.
I suggest you give "Drive-In Horror Show" a listen for the pure fact that it's a fun, rip-roaring soundtrack experience that really reminded me of the first time I sat and listened to The Crow soundtrack. You get a wide variety within a direct, dark premise with a splash of horror for good measure. Because we all know how you wanna roll down some honky-tonk backroad with this on the portable record player.