The Brains Crazy Monster Review
I’m a little late dragging myself to the latest slab from Montreal’s Psychobilly fiends, The Brains, but to be fair, recovering from ear surgery doesn’t exactly pair well with upright bass thunder and Horror-fueled chaos.
Their newest full-length, Crazy Monster, dropped appropriately on July 4th, and let me tell you, this beast is feral. This isn't just another Brains album, this is their most unapologetically Horror-obsessed release to date. It’s a straight-up monster mash with no escape hatch. Those already familiar with the band’s macabre leanings will find themselves back in hellish comfort, because here, the grave is never cold, and the lyrics come crawling out with claws and bad intentions. The Brains are where they belong: knee-deep in horror, gasoline, and grim melody. All Horror. All the Time. Exactly where I want them.
Several singles bled out in the lead-up to the release, but the cut here that grabs me by the neck the most is “Hollywood Final.” It’s a morbid instrumental drenched in spaghetti western dust and draped with eerie whistles and mariachi trumpets. It conjures up ghost-town dread - The Town That Dreaded Sundown meets Carpenter’s Vampires, riding shotgun with Eastwood's ghost. The guitar work is lethal, razor-sharp riffing and cinematic leads that crawl across the desert of your imagination. And those trumpets, fucking glorious. Horns of the damned.
Then there’s “Darkness,” a mid-tempo creeper that prowls with a steady gait, think Tiger Army on a moonless night. The real payoff here is in the chorus, a gigantic melodic hook that sinks in deep and refuses to let go. It’s the kind of chorus that lingers like fog on a tomb.
“Candy Apple Red” kicks the doors off with car-themed carnage, an ode to chrome, speed, and blood on the dashboard. I’m a sucker for songs about badass rides, and this one roars with Punk Rock velocity and the devil's own charm. If you’re into nitro-fueled tunes that could soundtrack a getaway from a burning town, this is your jam.
“One More Time” throws it back with a dose of Rockabilly-stained Psychobilly, one of the band’s signature sounds. It's a welcome flicker of familiarity amidst the creeping dread, like finding a dance floor inside a haunted house.
There isn’t a single misstep on this record. Every track lands. Every note is soaked in the kind of melodic rot that makes Psychobilly worth bleeding for. Crazy Monster is, without question, their strongest outing since The Monster Within, a high watermark of terror-tinged songwriting and spine-snapping production.
Sure, “Friends and Zombified Antics” held us over, but this, this, is the fresh meat for the beast! These are all-new, skin-crawling anthems meant to soundtrack your descent into madness. I’ll be securing the vinyl, no question. There’s something about hearing that upright bass thump in analog.
The production here is shockingly clean, tight, modern, and detailed in a way that many Psychobilly releases just don’t achieve. The Brains gave a damn, and it shows.
If this one’s not in your collection yet, fix that fast. The veil is thinning. The dead don’t sleep. And Crazy Monster is the soundtrack for every moonlit drive through the underworld.