Bela Lugosi might be dead, the bats may have left the bell tower and the victims bled. But the red velvet doesn’t line the box, by the sound of Bela & the Lugosis, they’d be more likely to be turn it into a gloriously over the top stage shirt, to go with the “plastic boots and spandex flares” of the EPs title track.
The Trash in Dayglow 5 Track EP announces itself in darkly majestic style, with the thunderous instrumental AS Erotica laying the groundwork for the clamorous electrically charged wham bam thank you ma’am glam stomp of the song from which the EP takes its name. It is already apparent that this release bolsters their already burgeoning and impressive back catalogue. This glam goth outfit are not dead nor undead, they are positively alive and glowing, or should I say day-glowing, blending an eldritch crepuscularity with a booming colourful vibrancy as befits a band who mix the dark goth aesthetic of Bauhaus with the outrageous glam of 1970s Bowie…Bowhaus or Bauie? You choose!
While the Bela and the Lugosis goth-glam aesthetic is apparent once again on this EP, there seems to be a darker undercurrent running through these songs The vocal delivery of In Your Heels is delivered with the perfect insouciance deserving of a song the lyrics of which use the word nonchalantly and rhyme it with evidently, permanently and obviously. Goth revival you say? Well, there is an Awakening on Queen Street… but alongside the aforementioned Bowie/Bauhaus references, this song, along with its predecessor reveals an undertone of the avant-grade 1960s rockers the Velvet Underground at its core, and a great deal of revealing soul-searching by the subject of the song in the lyrics.
Black Rock Beach develops that sound further by channelling Head On, appropriately for this mind fuck of a song, from the the East Kilbride brothers who took their inspiration from the band from NYC. The band come together to create a darkly beautiful mellifluous racket to blow the stars from the sky underscoring a vocal telling a dark tale of suicide on the beach, with carefully chosen discombobulating lyrics, juxtaposing ice cream and sunshine with the final act “with an ice cream in your hand, like a soldiers final stand, guess your beach fun day is over”, as we vicariously live out the protagonist’s last moments. The farthest from a perfect day as you could imagine…
Oh, you pretty things, take this as an instruction from me, don’t be a queen bitch, don your glad rags and dive into this EP head on. Go on, be a rebel, rebel, release the dayglow bats and let your spirit be overtaken by the dark overtures and the trash glam aesthetic of Bela and the Lugosis. I double dare you…