Just in time for Halloween, here's a magical gift for all you jivers, shuckers, run-a-muckers, and forlorn punkabillies wondering what happened to the Halloween you once knew in the halcyon heyday of The Cramps, Gun Club, and The Birthday Party: it's el hombre mysterioso himself, Kid Congo Powers, and he's back from the grave with a couple of rootin'-tootin' funk zombies to remind you why you went over to the dark side in the first place. The Kid has been a member of The Cramps, Gun Club, and Nice Cave & The Bad Seeds, so it only stands to reason that this album would be the best thing to happen to psychobilly since Lux Interior, rest his soul, first discovered Elvis. But here's the thing: this ain't psychobilly. It's psycho, that's for sure... bizarre and eerie covers of Bo Diddley's lost gem "Funky Fly" and the "Found A Peanut" song that they teach you in Cub Scouts attest to that. But Kid Congo's abandoned Carl Perkins and Gene Vincent for a sort of clattery funk that sounds more like a goofy Halloween-themed version of Can than it does "Human Fly". Oddly enough, there's two, uh, "Christmas" songs here: the filthy voodoo funk of "Kris Kringle Ju Ju" and the macabre Count-Five-in-hell dirge of "Black Santa". The most thrilling tracks, though, are the ones on which Kid Congo really gets weird, spooky, and fun in the most harebrained way imaginable: "Rare As The Yeti", for example, is three sublime minutes of all that's great about rock-and-fuckin'-roll. I hafta say it: this is my favorite album of 2009. Happy Halloween, all you turkeynecks, and stay tuned for more Halloween-y filth tomorrow!
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