With a sound heavily influenced by Clutch and The Melvins, newcomers Black Magic Sick deliver an album packed full fuzzy grooves, bouncing drum beats and rip it up vocals.
Opening track “Dance with me Satan” sets the tone firmly with distorted riff and a tight groove, cowbell included. “Shake shake shake” offers a surprisingly refreshing mix of horror punk and rockabilly with a touch of surf guitar thrown in for good measure while “16 tons of Misery” moves towards Black Sabbath/The Melvins territory of distortion. “Grease The Machine” travels closer to simple punk meets Rockabilly, with its call and response “yeah yeah yeah” and lively hand clap beat.
The rest of the record sticks to a pretty similar musical pallet, from the easy cruising through the desert at midnight groove of “Red Sky” to the no-frills groove metal blast of “Better Run Fast”, the band seem to know their limitations and stay dancing to the same strong but limited groove.
Although “Choose Death” doesn’t really offer much in the way of musical variety (many of the songs sound more or less identical to the point where you forget which song is which) it is hard to complain when the formula sounds as consistently solid and entertaining as it does here.
Ending the album with perhaps their strongest song, “Golden Jackal” brings together the distorted riffs and vocals without rushing through the mid-tempo groove to provide a fine solid album closer.
With a clear and simple production none of the songs overstay their welcome. ‘Choose Death’ sounds like the perfect soundtrack for a Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez film, replete with vampires and strippers in some sleazy bar room south of the border. For some reason, I’m guessing that just might have been what the band had in mind while writing the album.