Album Review- The Bomboras - Songs from Beyond

 Certain people epitomize certain moments and certain elements in time of pop culture. It might be Quentin Tarantino or Kevin Smith or Jack White or Oprah or Howard Stern or whoever pops up and catches the cultural zeitgeist of that date and time

In 1998, one of those people was Rob Zombie. Now he would go on to have a significant film career in the 2000s and even now, he’s able to co-headline a concert tour with Alice Cooper.

But back then, he seemed to be on the cutting edge and the future, and in this case, the future was the past: B-horror movies and all that come with them

So much so that Geffen Records gave Zombie his own Record label imprint. It was called Zombie A Go Go Records and was inspired by the soundtrack of that style - garage rock, surf, The Cramps, rockabilly, Halloween monsters, rockabilly and 1960s exploitation films

There are five albums that were released on the label - one was a compilation- Halloween Hootenany and was a sizable hit featuring artists like Rev Horton Heat, Southern Culture on the Skids and Los Straitjackets. One album was a spooky Sound Effect album called The Words and Music of Frankenstein and the last album was released in 2009 and was a tie in from Zombie’s Halloween 2 movie with Jessie Dayton fronting the fictional Captain Clegg and the Nightcreatures.

Which means there were two bands signed and had an album released on the label (both in 1998) and in my opinion both albums were strong additions to the genre- sounding like the past but also sounding modern.

The Ghastly Ones with A Haunting We Will Go and The Bomboras with Head Shrinkin Fun. It is easy for me to recall my 1998 soundtrack which was heavy into rockabilly, 50s and monsters. It was these two albums, the similarly themed American Psycho by the Michale Graves led Misfits and the 25 track Stray Cats compilation Runaway Boys, both which were released a year earlier.

I have tried to keep tabs on both bands. The Ghastly Ones never really getting much attention besides an appearance of one of their songs in a 2009 episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants. According to Wikipedia, drummer/co founder Baron Shivers is focused on making movies and keyboardist “Captain Clegg” David Klein has played or recorded with about 100 bands, most notably touring with recent editions of the Seeds and Agent Orange.

It was a bit easier to track the Bomboras as they evolved into (or at least their band leaders Jake Cavaliere and Johnny DeVilla formed) the Lords of Altamont- another nostalgic act - this one tying in fast cars, the Wild One soundtrack, Big Daddy Roth and psychedelia and that band made a significant splash with 2003s To Hell With The Lords on the Sympathy for the Record Industry label- the first of seven albums. That band at various times including Harry Drumdini (Nick Knox’s successor in the Cramps) and Michael Davis (bassist for the MC5).

The Bomboras popped back up with 4 new songs in 2021 and 2023 sees their first album in (*gasp) 25 years. And it sounds like you might expect. Instrumental surf augmented with Farfisa Organ bringing to mind aliens and the space race as informed by the Sonics and the Ventures.

Which isn’t as easy as it sounds, or everyone would do it, but the Bomboras pick up where they left off and if you are a fan of the genre, it’s worth your time