Gil Mantera's Party Dream - Bloodsongs

Genre rock Publisher Fat Possum External Links Official Website Fat Possum

Listening to Bloodsongs from Gil Mantera's Party Dream is like playing Space Invaders with an intergalactic planetary background via PS2 but with the same classic space creatures crawling down the screen.

Bloodsongs, a ten song montage of cheesy 80's rips with a touch of modern flare. In fact, turn down the vocals on "Building Rockets," and you have enticing level three music for Space Invaders 3000 (if such a game ever exists.)

On "Buffalo Tears" the Youngstown, Ohio twosome mix bad 80's dance beats with a slight nu-metal crunch. To layer on the cheese the group breaks out robotic vocodor choruses on "Shadow's Grip," "Elmo's Wish," "Super Plus Ice Festival," and "Bunz Therapy." Elsewhere, but especially on the closing numbers "Brave New Christmas" and "McCoojah & Kizmit," the music sounds influenced by The Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

So, cheesy beats, vocodor, nu-metal flavoring, a Trans-Siberian Orchestra touch point, and bad lyrics would lead anyone to believe Bloodsongs, to be a trashy album, and it mostly is, but despite all of this, a song like "Bunz Therapy," with its slow groove and hypnotic robotic chorus of, "I'm having fun on the waterslide. I'm feeling great and getting high" can be fun to listen to. It's a guilty pleasure album, and like playing classic arcade games on PS2 once you've had your fix you'd rather go back to the original or play something new.