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The Coffinshakers

The Coffinshakers / The Archers (7″ 2011)

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

The Coffinshakers * We Are The Undead (lp 1999 primitive art records)

Some people have thought that The Coffinshakers were a joke. This was mainly because of their highly unusual kind of music in the dark scene: country! Fact is though, that I’ve got a demo from them which is already from as far back as 95 and I believe that was their second or third recording. That they still exist today, should prove to everyone that they’re definately not a joke. However this lp should have been released almost two years ago (as a cd), I’m glad that it’s finally available. As long as I know the band I’ve been captured by their totally insane combination of country music and vampiric lyrics. Some 7″s have been made available by Primitive Art and now there’s an lp which is limited to 666 copies, so I’m afraid “We Are The Undead” is not going to give The Coffinshakers much of a name. But everyone who isn’t afraid of rock’n’roll country music should try to get his/her hand on this marvelous lp. I don’t like it as much as I do the demo and 7″s, but that may be caused because the surprise is gone for me. That doesn’t mean that I don’t like this lp, it’s still truly something completely different in my collection and I sure do see the fun of it. Buy this lp with the four cool dudes on the cover!