The long awaited acoustic album, UnDead Unplugged, from Wednesday 13 has arrived! Finally fans have a chance to hear their favorite songs in a stripped down, pure, simple versions with the assistance of Mr. Jack Tankersley.
Clocking in at a little over 38 minutes with one new and ten previous released tracks, the album fails to disappoint. He has done acoustic country albums, remixed his previous released songs, and recently wrapped up an acoustic tour of jolly old England, so an acoustic release was inevitable. However just as you think that you have Wednesday 13 penned down, he pulls something like this out of his hat that people would not expect from the future king of horror rock. Wednesday’s sense of humor threads through all his albums, in which this time he parodies the original Whitesnake album cover!
Do you want to know what makes a great song? It is not the production; it is not the type of instruments used during tracking. It is if the song can hold up as an electrical version as well as it being played acoustically. If a song is written well, it will transform easily with little changes to the arrangement. Wednesday proves that much of his catalog ranging from his early days as in FDQ “Scary Song”, the days of Murderdolls “Welcome to the Strange” and “Nowhere”, as well as his newer auras “Ghost Stories”, can all wear the acoustic label because-they are great fucking songs that are well written! Period!
Recorded in his office/beat laboratory/dojo/Transylvania Studios, with help from Jack TankersIey engineering, and Brent Clawson mixing/mastering. The sound is up front in the speakers but yet so dynamic and well rounded. Seriously, I cannot stress how clean the tone is! This shit sounds better than a lot of acoustic songs that were recorded in 64 track digital studios. The acoustic guitars are bright while the vocals are tucked nicely into the mix. The songs are visited on a couple of occasions by a keyboard where appropriate to fill in the mix of melody but not used as a crutch, which would defeat the purpose all together.
Highlights of the album include “Haunt Me”, “Nowhere”, “Curse of Me”, “Scary Song”, and “Ghost Stories”. Not that the others don’t fall into the acoustic mold, these just resonate with haunting and ethereal sounds from the speakers. The only thing I think could be cooler than this is if it were to be released on vinyl!
This album is best heard with the lights turned down and the music turned up. Freak, geeks, and ghouls of all ages, plug in your electric flicker light bulbs inside your Funkin pumpkins and settle down with this one on the CD player. You won’t be disappointed! I don’t usually give such a high rating to a new release of previously released songs, but…
4.5/5 Jack-o-lanterns
You can dig up (see what I did there?) more dirt on Wednesday at:
www.facebook.com/officialwednesday 13
wednesday 13 (officialwed13) on Twitter
or buy the official merchandise at:
Renfield Rasputin writes horror, plays in several Texas bands, keeps this site above water, and can be followed on Twitter where you can tell him to your heart’s content how much he sucks.