1995. I was in my ‘transition period’ from metal to something else. Still from within the metal scene a flyer reached me. It was a weird, handdrawn flyer announcing “vampyric country music” and “country undead”. Wondering what that would be, I got myself a copy of a wonderfull demo. Then followed two 7″s (1996 and 1999) and a 12″ (2000). After that I lost track of this Swedish band, but this was not due to them. Two more albums and four 7″s were thrown towards the masses, but it was only recently that I found out that the band still exists. They opened one of the “gothabilly” compilations and recently a split 7″ was released. The music indeed reminds a bit of country, American hillbilly music, sometimes the songs are uptempo and relatively cheerfull, sometimes the songs are more modest and reminding of Johnny Cash. The lyrics are horror-themed, ‘biographically’ vampiric, sometimes about voodoo or similar subjects, but vampires make the most part of the inhabitents of the Coffinshakers songs. I do not know if the band knew about the psychobilly bands when they started with their project, but thematically and somewhat in sound, these can be quite similar. I have seen Coffinshakers patches on psychobilly jacks, so that scene found the band for sure. The music is not strictly speaking “psychobilly”, there is not really rock and roll or horror punk, “country undead” remains a good description. There are two nice songs on the 7″, The Archers (a band that I did not know) has slightly more psychobilly sound, but also not too typical and with surf-elements. A nice combination, a nice release.
Links: The Coffinshakers, The Archers, Alleycat Records
