After booking tickets to go and see The Chelsea Smiles when they support Wednesday 13 on his forthcoming UK tour, I thought it was about time I get myself some Wednesday education.
Wednesday 13 - Bloodwork
His latest Limited Edition EP, Bloodwork has provided endless hours of ‘revision’ as I prepare to experience one of his incredible live shows for the first time next month, and I think I like what I hear.
Wednesday 13 has an interesting ‘fairground horror movie’ sound on this EP and I immediately love his individual approach to music, not too dissimilar from Marilyn Manson’s baffling glamorous approach.
The album opens with B-Movie Babylon which, I am told, is the perfect example of Wednesday’s Horror Punk sound and is everything I had imagined the album would deliver. I love it’s hallucinogenic background noise which is wonderfully juxtaposed by Wednesday’s gut wrenching lyrics.
Next up is Return Of The Living Dead with is clearly going to go down well with any zombie fans, however, the lyrics seem to be a little lost on me, sadly I prefer my men to look more human than like the living dead, quite frankly the idea of corpses wandering around the streets scares me a little bit.
I must admit though, I do find myself loving the cover of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Runnin’ Down A Dream. I’m a fan of the original and although covers can either be hit or miss with most music fans, I think this one is pretty swish, and I can’t wait to start swirling around to it live.
I Love To Say Fuckis a re-recording of a song by Wednesday’s former band, Frankenstein Drag Dream and if you haven’t heard it before, it’s clearly going to go down well with the angst-ridden teenagers, yet maybe not with his parents; well that’s if he doesn’t swear in front of them already… otherwise the lyrics; “And I don’t care if you’re my mother, or my mother-fu**king father, I couldn’t really give a f**k now, that ain’t my mother-f**king problem” might not ring quite so true.
The rest of the EP is made up of two acoustic renditions of songs from 13's Skeletons album, My Demise and Skeletons and I have actually heard My Demise in my local nightspot before, and it’s crazy to hear it sung this way after watching drunk 16 year olds dance like crazy to the beat.
Although I have to admit that I’ve never before heard Skeletons I do really like this version, so I’m hoping I’d like the original too. For the firs time it becomes clear how beautiful and unique Wednesday’s voice really is, fair enough it sounds like he smokes 40 a day and drinks whiskey like it’s water, but you know what, I think, based on this EP, I’m a fan.
Bring it on Manchester.
Rating: 4/5
Skip To: I Love To Say F**K - It makes you feel giggly!
FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison