Last Saturday instead of clubbing and whatever it is other 25 year olds do, I watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the middle of suburbia at a friend’s house. Why am I sharing my tales of anti-socialness with you? Well the movie goes with The Wicked’s Never Trust the Dead.
See The Wicked is a self-proclaimed pair of gypsy rockers with a new album on the horizon. Makes sense now doesn’t it? Both members of this group, Janele Mystique and Nick Janowicz, can’t even take a legal drink and look as baby faced as the covers of Tiger Beat, but their sound is far from that.
The Dresden Dolls influence is apparent throughout this record as the theatrics and cabaret antics are high in songs like first single, “Elevator,” but it’s the downright creepy factors that stand out even more. The whole time “Funeral Etiquette” plays, one can’t help but imagine a corpse in a coffin commenting on its surroundings as if they’d never perished in the first place.
Keeping with the spooky tone, “Nightmares” comes in, but it’s not a song of traditional scary dreams. It’s more of an Alice in Wonderland trip where the Cheshire Cat’s freaking you out. Last one to use scare tactics is “Granny’s House.” One mention of “scream if you’re scared” and I was ready to scream my lungs out.
If Panic at The Disco suddenly took a dark turn, they’d be The Wicked. But since Panic will forever be sugary pop, The Wicked gets to take the crown in this one. Their gypsy comes through loud and clear with the showmanship of tracks like “Time to Kill” and “The Disease.” You can almost imagine them on a street corner with a bowler cap on the ground collecting coins.
Fans The Dresden Dolls and Charlotte Eriksson are advised to take a ride with The Wicked’s Never Trust the Dead when it drops August 9th.
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