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DESCRIPTION FROM CRUCIAL BLAST:
Everything that comes out on Death Waltz generally gets my blood pressure up, but when the label's latest offering landed on my doorstep, the long-awaited vinyl reissue of Fabio Frizzi's score to the Lucio Fulci freakout Paura nella città dei morti viventi (also released under the English titles Gates Of Hell and City Of The Living Dead), I could barely contain myself. Housed in a newly designed sleeve featuring Graham Humphreys' phenomenal artwork, this classic Frizzi blast looks and sounds better than ever, and is one of his finest collaborations with the Italian splatter master. Released back in 1980, City is one of the most notorious of Fulci's 80s films, a surrealistic nightmare that loosely told the story of a remote New England town being transformed into a portal to Hell. Sort of. Fulci's film doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and had one of the most absurdly ambiguous endings ever pasted onto the end of a horror film, but holy smokes did it deliver some eye-scorching visuals: some of Fulci's most infamous sequences were to be found here, from the insane head-drilling scene that seems to go on forever, to that unforgettable scene where poor Daniela Doria locks eyes with the film's demonic priest, then proceeds to puke up her entire intestinal tract. While Fulci was still two films away from his horror masterpiece The Beyond, this still stands as one of the most batshit Italian horror movies from the era, moving on a kind of deranged dream-logic that makes it's atmosphere and scenes of carnage impossible to forget.
Frizzi and Fulci had already worked together on a number of films, and for City of The Living Dead Frizzi employed a similar throbbing synth-heavy style as his work on Zombi 2. Combining elements of prog rock, experimental soundscapery and primitive electronic music, this score drips with spooky, delirious atmosphere. Creepy synthesizer textures, tense violin arrangements, haunting choral voices, and some seriously fuzz-drenched funk bass that becomes a recurring motif throughout the score are all blended together into a strange graveyard ambience. The lush, ominous orchestral strings of "Introduzione" give way to plodding funeral march drums and washes of dark synth and choral voices, joined by bluesy licks peeled off an electric guitar, followed by forays into spooky piano melodies and solemn prog dirges, surges of shimmering metallic percussion and nightmarish synth effects, ghostly chittering and warped orchestral noise; Frizzi gets into some really Goblin-esque prog rock weirdness throughout his score, laying hypnotic droning bass guitar and squealing electronics around frenzied percussive freakouts, those haunted choir voices a recurrent element, and "Irrealtà Di Suoni" uses acoustic guitar and piano in a similarly Gobliny fashion. There's some ridiculously groovy funk that pops up at weird moments, whirring metallic drones, chortling horn sections leering out of the shadows, and eerie woodwind melodies that float over pulsating prog-funk grooves. Dolorous cinematic string sections, deranged tribal drumming and searing acid-rock guitar, swells of Floydian space-blues, and blast after blast of searing, piercing psychedelic noisiness. It's a classic slab of surrealistic splatter symphonics that has a handful of moments that could possibly even appeal to fans of the darker Italian progressive rock like Antonius Rex, Il Balletto di Bronzo and Jacula, and you'll obviously groove on this if you're already a devotee of horror-prog masters Goblin. In addition to the original score, the Lp also includes a seven minute live track at the end that features Frizzi performing selections from the City score at London’s Union Chapel in 2013, which sounds pretty fantastic.
In typical Death Waltz fashion, this reissue is top notch in terms of sound and presentation, remastered and pressed on 180 gram vinyl and packaged in a heavyweight sleeve, fleshed out further with all-new liner notes written by Frizzi himself that illuminate his thoughts on the score and the film, and includes a large foldout poster that features Graham Humphreys' stunning cover art, which I gotta say is probably my favorite cover yet from Death Waltz. Highly recommended.
© CRUCIAL BLAST
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