PopHorror Let's Get Scared
I’ve been watching horror cinema faithfully since High School in the early nineties. When I discovered Italian cinema, my mind was blown, especially Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, Ruggero Deodato and Dario Argento. In the early wave before a lot of these films even got good VHS treatment from companies like Anchor Bay, I was buying and trading tapes which had ludicrously bad transfers of these films because originals were near impossible to come by. The one thing that always intrigued me on most of these films – besides the insane violence – was the beautiful and memorable music.
Many horror films are known for their unique, mind bending soundtracks. There’s Lucio Fulci’s Zombie, City Of The Living Dead, The Beyond, House By The Cemetery and The New York Ripper, all scored by Fabio Frizzi. The band Goblin has been featured in Dario Argento’s Deep Red and Suspiria, as well as George A. Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead. Ruggero Deodato’s classic, Cannibal Holocaust, had the most amazingly beautiful soundtrack from Riz Ortolani to accompany its brutal content. Let’s not forget the legendary John Carpenter, who composed the music to his films Halloween, Escape From New York and Assault On Precinct 13. So when I heard about the one man Swedish band IslandRocks and his musical renditions of these classic themes, I just had to check it out.
Thomas Nyholm, the man behind IslandRocks, has created a whirlwind of musical bliss with two of his projects, Covering Of The Horrors Past and Revisiting Odyssey’s Of Horrors. I listened to both releases and instantly got goosebumps… that is how godly these are. I instantly had to gush about how much appreciation I had for his craft.
Covering Of The Horrors Past opens with the theme from Lamberto Bava’s Demons, and it has never sounded so good. The Demons score is an even more upbeat re-visioning of Claudio Simonetti’s already classic theme. Tracks of Fulcis City Of The Living Dead, The Beyond, House By The Cemetery and New York Ripper are in grand form here as well. House By The Cemetery has to be one of the most cooling, soothing and laid back lounge music jams on the album.
There are two versions featuring the theme from Lucio Fulci’s New York Ripper, one that is a more laid back lounge/jazz offering, although both are excellent. Halloween, Escape From New York and Assault On Precinct 13 are some of my favorites on the release. The upbeat rock style put into Escape From New York is jaw dropping, as is Assault On Precinct 13. I absolutely love the hard driving spin he has put on these tracks. It is a must hear for all fans of these movies. If you haven’t heard them you are missing out big time. Horror fans need this music in their lives.
Island Rocks even takes on Troma with themes from Class Of Nuke’m High and Sgt Kabuki-man NYPD. Both are in high energetic form on the album. We also get the theme from the slasher Madman with a more metal sound. Suspiria is beautiful as is the theme from Cannibal Holocaust. Probably the coolest track on the album is “Fulci Funk,” which is a melody of all things from Fulci’s movies. I loved picking out which parts were from what movie. Last but not least, I can’t forget the hard rocking rendition of the classic Exorcist.
The second album of horror musical offerings from IslandRocks is titled Revisiting Odyssey’s Of Horrors. The opener is a hard rocking rendition from Enzo G. Castellari’s Mad Max rip off, Warriors Of The Wasteland, one of many which Castellari did. Most were all entertaining as Hell. We get some more Fulci with the theme from his brutal gangster epic, Contraband. Zombi 2 is this fast paced, disco, jazzed out romp with high energy.
There’s lots of other great stuff including a pair of themes from Umberto Lenzi’s Cannibal Ferox and Eaten Alive. Riz Ortolani is explored again with a rendition from Ruggero Deodato’s sleaze classic, House On The Edge Of The Park. I was hoping to hear IslandRocks do a rendition of “Sweetly” from House On The Edge Of The Park by Ortolani, but maybe next time. A cool rocking Toxic Avenger song is featured on here as well, along with two versions of the Prom Night theme, a song with a strong disco vibe that has both a regular version and an old school retro quality sounding VHS version.
I love all the songs on this album, but the one that sticks out for me is the chilled out version of the theme from Lamberto Bava’s awesome action film, Blastfighter, originally composed by Fabio Frizzi. There is also another Suspiria rendition and it’s a must hear, much the same as the version on Covering Of The Horrors Past. IslandRocks deserves some attention for putting such love into these themes. I think if Fulci were around today, these albums would bring a grin to his face after hearing the passion put into the songs from his films. IslandRocks is the real deal and musician Thomas Nyholm has been putting out music for years with different projects.
Nylom himself gave me an indepth bio of IslandRocks:
“I’m just going to get into this right of the bat… I started Island Rocks in 2006 and was doing mainly some Nintendo type of metal renditions. Then pretty early on I started to do some horror music covers and kind of went from that. I didn’t know some of the videos would get so many views, but I guess I was early doing this kind of thing since I really didn’t personally know anyone else doing it at the time. However, when I started out, I hadn’t any proper recording material, so it was rather simplistic covers, but people really dug it anyway.
When I much later on got a studio at home, I wanted to do proper renditions, so the goal was to do albums with the material to make it more accessible. Throughout the years, I got lot of mails about this, and now I am taking it to a whole new level with the plan to release a lot of albums, with some own written songs as well inspired by the stuff I love, in particular Euro horror and the composers behind these films. I think my unique touch is that I do the songs in my own way and in many different styles. I play all instruments myself… Guitars, bass, drums and keyboards and others and do not program the music.
My background is in metal. I got my first major record deal with Mascot Records with the one man group, Damnation Army, which is a black/death metal project, and released two albums with them, Tyrant and Circle of the Brave. I do have countless other one man projects I’ve released things with throughout the years, but the most current is the Black Metal band Isgärde.
I’ve been doing music that will be featured on Mike Malloy’s upcoming documentary, Plastic Movies Rewound – The Story of the ’80s Home Video Boom. I’ve done music for the documentary for the Code Red edition of Madman, and a small bit for Another World Entertainment’s release of a segment in Wasteland Tales. I’ve also done a song cover for Troma Entertainment to a trailer for Sgt. Kabukimans Cocktail Corner.
Do yourself a favor and visit Amazon where you can find Covering Of The Horrors Past here and Revisiting Odyssey’s Of Horrors here.
You can also find IslandRocks on Spotify:
