Last Friday, Ice Nine Kills released their sequel album to The Silver Scream titled Welcome to Horrorwood: The Silver Scream 2. Needless to say, the album is to die for.
Sequels are always either a hit or a miss, and this one is right on the money. For starters, the singles are some of the best. I always feel that the singles usually don’t amount to the rest of the album, but this is a far different case. The singles bring so much energy and really capture Welcome to Horrorwood.
Hip to be Sacred has to be one of my favorites on the album and among the singles. It’s based off the 2000s film “American Psycho” and they did a near perfect job of recreating that film musically and theatrically in the music video.
One of my favorite parts in the song is when Spencer Charnas and Jacoby Shaddix reenact the scene with Patrick and Paul where they talked about Huey Lewis and The News: “Do you like Ice Nine Kills? (Not really). Their early work was a little bit too scene for me but when The Silver Scream came out I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a refined melodic sensibility that really makes it a cut above the rest.”
There are aspects that I can even say I enjoy more than The Silver Scream, such as more diversity between songs.
For example, songs like Take Your Pick and Farewell II Flesh have different feels to them. Take Your Pick is much heavier, as it features Cannibal Corpse’s vocalist Corpsegrinder. Farewell II Flesh, however, has a bit of a softer, slower start to it with the piano and equalized vocals.
One of the most enjoyable and memorable parts of this album is all the Easter eggs within the songs. Similar to my example aboved from Hip to be Scared, other songs also do the same thing.
Farewell II Flesh has Flight of the Bumblebee in it as well as bee buzzing. Assault & Batteries has audio of a child saying “Mommy mommy, my doll is alive!” and “Breaking News Alert: A deadly shootout at a local toy store has left one police officer wounded and a wanted serial killer dead.” Rainy Day, in reference to the game and movie “Resident Evil,” has a verse that sings, “Game over, you died.”
The movies referenced in this album are as listed: “Cabin Fever”, “Child’s Play”, “Psycho”, “Pet Sematary”, “Resident Evil”, “American Psycho”, “My Bloody Valentine”, “Hellraiser”, “The Fly”, “Hostel”, “Evil Dead”, and “Candyman”.
Overall, the album did not disappoint. I can’t say it tops the first, but it exceeded my expectations for it being the sequel. However, I do feel it should be mentioned that the movies in the second album don’t amount to the classicity of the ones in the first album and that may be why some don’t like the second album.
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