Death Hymn Number 9 at Vacation Vinyl on Tuesday June 7th, 2011
They took a long time to get into their zombie look, they covered their faces with white make-up and fake blood, but when they began to play, they released a loud wild scream that could not possibly come from dead people.
On Tuesday night, the quartet Death Hymn Number 9 was celebrating at Vacation Vinyl the release of their new 12", ‘Smokestack Frightening' on Bennett Records, and I would swear they were actually sweating that fake blood after a few songs. Their scary and violent garage rock, disguised under a hardcore delivery, will definitively make you regret you have forgotten your earplugs if you are close to them as I was, although they have great stomping blues rock tunes, sung by a mad frontman acting and howling like a savage animal.
With a drumbeat in constant high-speed competition with them, the aggressive guitars were surfing over some hard blues, sounding like a deranged version of the Black Keys if you want a mainstream reference, with a Dick Dale-y style on some songs; they even had a ‘Fatman’ song, which was obviously the Batman theme on acid.
The four acted insane and relax at the same time, visibly having a lot of fun, especially the long-haired singer, who was screaming his guts out, adding a great trash quality to the whole scene. ‘We have albums, we want your money’, he shouted between two songs.
The show was raw, intense, fast, loud and chaotic, delivered like a bloody vision of some visceral scream coming from the deepest backyards of the New Orleans, where they pretend to be from on their facebook page
