October 21, 2019

  • A Coffee Table Book For Horror Fans

    A stunning image of a zombie chomping on an LP grabs the attention immediately in this new book exploring LP covers for a variety of horror-genre soundtracks.  Essentially, Blood on Black Wax is a coffee table book, the sort of volume one leafs through casually and perhaps reads a few of the brief comments that appear with most of the album covers featured here.  The reproduction of these covers is striking with vivid colors and reproduction that make this a gorgeous tome to explore.

    The information that is included is a blend of composer comments, commentary about the music of the film featured, and some information on the album itself.  The latter relates more specifically to the vinyl releases in cases where a more recent re-release has occurred when the album might otherwise only have appeared on CD when formats changed over in the 1980s.   Composer interviews are integrated into the information for many of the selections here.  These alternate with brief information about each of the films and then some discussion of the music and, often, the way it was used in the film.

    Albums are organized into seven broad categories which actually serve the coffee table style of the book. Blood on Wax is not really something one might read cover to cover, though one certainly can.  Instead, it rewards a casual browsing where one might just simply enjoy the visuals and art of these album covers.  The accompanying text serves its purpose of being informative and is equally entertaining.  It also helps that this format is broken up with the use of questions and composer answers that are distributed throughout the book.  The striking cover will catch your eye which invites you to leaf through the book stopping at the familiar films of one’s own childhood or wondering about a film one has never heard of before, though most likely fans of these genre films will be familiar with most of the films included.