The Dead End Street Band — After The Funeral...

The Dead End Street Band are a three piece project from North East of England who simmer up a decidedly 70’s/80’s focused sound that falls somewhere between synth bound horror soundtrack, subtle noise tone creep-ness, and eerier semi-industrial ambient tinged tone manipulation. After The Funeral is a CDR release from late 2013, and it features four fairly lengthy  tracks that fall between the 15-20 minute mark.

The packaging for this release is worth a mention- it comes in a DVD case, and the colour cover mimics the look & feel old VHS/ Betamax  horror tape covers from the late 70’s/ early 80’s, taking in pictures of graveyards & magic mushrooms!. It’s all tipped off with a ghoulish description on the back. It’s really neat design/ idea, and I guess it’s only let down slightly by not been housed in a original video case.

I think this is the third or forth release I’ve heard from this project, and once again I’m afraid I came away from the release with some what mixed feelings…as I found the track quality rather unpredictable going from compelling, creepy, and worthy…through to wondering, bland, and un-atmospheric.

Things start off well with the track “Day Of The Manic”(which was apparently one of the first things the project recorded  together as a three piece). The twenty one minute track opens with a nice rising ‘n’ sustained mix of dread filled synth tones; as we progress these get more & more seared by ebbs of gurgling, rumbling, & accelerating electro tone. Then at around the four & a half minute mark this slowly sweeping ‘n’ swirling horror focused synth melody slides in…from here on the three piece keep the moody synth melody going, while adding in first one than another shifting electro textural point & moody  synth swirl. At around the 13th minute the melodic element pan-out & melts back somewhat, and we go into a more free-form & noise based retro electro work-out, yet there is still is a nice feeling of dread present. All told this track has a nice balance between the haunting & dread filled central synth element, and the more noisy & nightmarish electro texturing….it’s a good start to proceedings.

Next we have the “Wizard Of Arkham”, and to be honest I really wasn’t a fan of this 12 minute track. It opens with ugly mass of low end rumbling synth purr ‘n’ judder, and underneath this we get just the hint of a more edgy  melodic element…but this never really goes anywhere much, and mostly the tracks built around this mass of uninteresting & bland low end-to-mid range synth hovering ‘n’ purring. Sure it’s meaty ‘n’ dense, but it just didn’t have the needed feeling of dread & atmosphere…so instead of feeling creeped-out I just felt rather bored.

Track three comes in the form of “The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell”. This track comes in at the 14 minute mark, & it’s built around a mixture of  two or three brooding low-end ‘n’ buzzing synth textures/ retro effect pedal hovers. To start with we a get batch of melted & looped  movie dialogue sample that find a women asking a man “How did you make that strangling look so real?”, and he says "because I killed him”…but these soon fade & we’re left which just the dense retro electro dirge of mainly deep ‘n’ meaty electro tones, though there are a few more caustic ‘n’ searing elements mixed-in too. Sure once again there’s still not much shape or structure to proceedings, but it does feel damn brooding ‘n’ nasty.

Lastly we have “Beneath the Soil, The worms”, and this comes in  around the  14 minute mark. It’s is built around a mixture of: buzz ‘n’ purring synth mulch, looped & buried vocal chants, weaves of basic through not very chilling church organ like melody played on a synth, with chopping ‘n’ spacey  electro texturing on top.  I really felt this track just rather lacked any kind of real atmosphere, and the mix of tones/electro noises just felt very bland to my ears

As I say above the project certainly have the tools, ability, and scope to create really compelling retro styled horror sonics…but it sadly (once again) with After The Funeral..., they offer up a decided mixed bag….with great material sitting along side more lacklustre fare.