With his new record Darren Deicide proves that the blues sure aren’t dead. This charismatic juke joint hip cat from Jersey City provides us with a fine piece of wax that doesn’t only sounds great, but also comes in a stunning full-colour sleeve with a big-ass eight pages booklet. The release is limited to 250 copies, vinyl only, so be fast to get your greasy paws on this slap of dark infernal blues music!

After a short spoken-word intro the first song is “Killing the Dead”, a six minute dark sounding slide guitar song driven by heavy footstomping. With this opener, from the first minute on Darren shows you what he’s all about. This is not an easy-listening, happy joy joy kinda album. It’s grim, angry and hard to put your finger on. But that makes the trip so much more interesting.
“Static” is next, and in comparison to Killing the Dead, Darren slows all the way down. His almost howling, complaining way of singing here gives the song a little extra, I don’t know what… And when the deep dark voice of Edgefield C. Johnson comes in… Just perfect…
“Devil Woman Blues” a song based on “Devil Got my Woman”by Skip James was released earlier as part of “The Harsimus Sessions” recorded live in The Harsimus Cemetery in Jersey City. Now re-recorded for the album, this acoustic serenade sounds so primitive almost ancient, but at the same time it’s a perfect sing-a-long for the dark-at-heart folks among us. When I hear this song I can’t help but wonder what a doom or sludge band would do with it, you’ll understand when you hear it for the first time.
My favorite song on this album must be “My Star Spangled Banner”. A mid-tempo eerie sounding, but fierce “anthem”. A special thank you goes out in the liner-notes to Nathan Gray from Boy Sets Fire and The Nathan Gray Collective for this song and I can only imagine why… Can you?

Over to side B.
Another re-recording from The Harsimus Sessions (which where only released as video’s) is “Dance of the Demon Rag”. A short original instrumental with a little tango feel to it, a dark tango that is…
If “My Star Spangled Banner” sounded eerie, “Throwing it all away” sounds like pure depression. But Holy Crow, does it sound GOOD!!! There are so many little details in this song, like the humming along-side the slide-guitar or the desperation in his voice when he screams “nobody cares!”. Remember that doom band thing I wrote about earlier? It’s back…
But it’s not all doom and gloom,  with “Boom Power Boogie” Darren serves us a scarce up-tempo song on this record and it does the trick perfectly even more so when the Hammond organ kicks in!
The last song on the record is a Mercyful Fate cover, yes a Mercyful Fate cover… “At The Sound Of The Demon Bell” If you want to know how it sounds or why it’s on this record I guess you just have to buy it.

Now you have read about it, now you need to get it!
Head over to http://darrendeicide.com/ to order your copy, or drop us a line at oldstylemusicnights@gmail.com if you live in Europe. We have 20 copies laying around at HQ.