Teabag’s sack this week – Thee Flatliners “Pandemonium”. What an album!

I must say that whilst researching the music for the next PGP show I really enjoyed an old find in the #deadnate archives of the dead masters collection. It was the discography of the fantesticle band Thee Flatliners. They were formed in 1995 by members of Austria’s neo-rockabilly bands Cadillac Rust and The Cryptkickers.

The album that I’ve been listening to the most is Thee Flatliners 2001 long-player “Pandemonium”. I appreciate their other releases like Rhapsody In Black, Enter The Twilight and Vampires. In fact there is very little here that isn’t to like, apart from the lack of any new releases of course.

Pandemonium is simply a rolling behemoth of an album. The whole affair opens up with a bizarre vocal on the title track but the following songs have that fannytastic “springy” double-bass sound that I like. There are definitely some horror-punk influences on the guitar which is more on the metallic or hard-rock side of the street rather than rockabilly. Remember though that this was released in the early turn of the century when psychobilly was moving further and further away from a trad-rockabilly sound and into the punkabilly style. Talking of guitar, the release from the strictly 50s style gives some flexibility for the boys to get creative with the sound-engineering. I have to say that one of my favourite songs is The Bastards In Your Head which is an epic track simultaneously flexing it’s psychobilly muscles and then suddenly falling into a tremolo of psychedelia before returning to a two-step rock n roller.

Vocals on tracks like Cursed to Live Forever recall Kim Nekroman at his finest, which is a very, very good thing of course. The band has a tendency to use backing vocals which probably harks back to their origins in neo-rockabilly bands. The use of harmonies is something which is sorely missed in many of the harder-edge psychobilly bands and adds an interesting counterpoint to the tough-as-nails instrumentation.

All in all this wonderful album is definitely something that you should have in your collection.

You can get it over here at Crazy Love Records: http://www.crazyloverecords.de/flatliners-thee-pandemonium-cd.html