Lesbian Bed Death – Riot of the Living Dead – Album Review

Now I always like to do some research on a band before writing a review, but I have to say I was a little skeptical about doing so this time round as I wondered what the better half might think of finding Lesbian Bed Death in the search history. Also, who knows what kind of search results it might potentially bring forth! Sadly it wasn’t quite as pornographic as I’d secretly hoped, if anything it was quite the opposite. According to the ever reliable Wikipedia:

“Lesbian bed death is a term coined by University of Washington sociologist Pepper Schwartz in her 1983 book American Couples. According to Schwartz, lesbian couples in committed relationships have less sex than any other type of couple, and they generally experience less sexual intimacy the longer the relationship lasts.”

So, no shagging then. In fact I suppose I should stop talking about these sexual sexy sex things and actually write something about the music *sigh*

Riot of the Living Dead is Lesbian Bed Death’s third album and the first to feature new singer Kittie Racchea. They say “Sex, Drugs, Rock n’ Roll, and dodgy Horror films are an on-going theme with the band. Lesbian Bed Death is the soundtrack to a drunken teen Halloween party where everyone dies.” Strong words indeed, but can they live up to them?
First track ‘Darkness Falls’ seems an odd choice to start the album as it’s not as instant or fun as I was hoping for, it certainly takes a good couple of minutes for its teeth to finally sink in and its outro repeats for too long. Fortunately, ‘Soul Sucker’ is much closer to what I had in mind, coming across as a femme fatale incarnation of the Murderdolls with movie references aplenty. I have to be honest, when lead single ‘Halloween’ kicked in I thought I’d rested on the shuffle button and slipped on a rather classic Rainbow song by accident, either way it’s a catchy little number even if not the most original. ‘A Deadly Romance’ is a much more impressive piece of Goth Rock and one of the strongest tracks on Riot of the Living Dead, I just wish the drummer would put some fills in occasionally. There’s a nice little rock stomper in ‘Rockabilly Bitch’ but sadly no rockabilly in sight, and I’m a sucker for a spot of jaunty 12 bar.

‘So Wasted’ is another uptempo hard rock offering but its simplistic and cheesy lyrics start to grate after a while. Next up is ‘Seven Days’ another Goth Rock episode and once again these seem Lesbian Bed Death’s real strength, giving Kittie Racchea’s vocals much more space and range. Daft is the only word I can really use to describe ‘Ghost Face’, a song dedicated to the infamous killer of the Scream movies and title track ‘Riot of the Living Dead’ doesn’t do much for me either. ‘Chains’ finishes the album off quite nicely (yes I know there is 3 tracks after it!) by combining the Goth Rock elements with the rockier moments resulting in one of the best choruses on Riot of the Living Dead. That just leaves the 3 bonus tracks of re-recorded older material, material which is actually stronger than some of that on the album.

Overall there seems to be a slight lack of conviction behind the vocals while crooning lines such as “You’re everywhere I look, you sick motherfucker. One day I’ll show you pain, I’ll make you watch while I eat your brains.” Which I can fully understand as there’s no genuine emotional attachment to the lyrics, but if you’re doing the horror rock thing you need to go the whole hog and really spit them with some venom or it can come off as just being a bit silly and I can’t help but feel that Lesbian Bed Death could do themselves a favour by either choosing to truly go down the ‘fun’ route or taking the other path and writing some serious lyrics. At the moment they seem to be standing at the crossroads, waiting to make their deal with the devil.

Track Listing

1. Darkness Falls
2. Soul Sucker
3. Halloween
4. A Deadly Romance
5. Rockabilly Bitch
6. So Wasted
7. Seven Days
8. Ghost Face
9. Riot of the Living Dead
10. Chains

Bonus Tracks
11. Pretty But Mental
12. Moonlight
13. Designed by the Devil, Powered by the Dead.

Grab your copy HERE