There’s something to be said for knowing exactly what you’re gonna get.  You can’t go to a Metallica show and get the same high you got when you were in your later teens or early 20’s.  What’s worse – you can’t listen to a Metallica album and truly reminisce about that live experience. Your ears and eyes heard and saw those things and you enjoyed how they translated between record to club (or arena).

I have always been a fan of nitty-gritty-dirty garage rock and punk that translates to exactly what you could expect to see live.  Monster Magnet, Bang Camaro, Josh Todd’s solo work, Danko Jones, Danzig/Misfits, King Khan & The Shrines, Von Bondies etc.  These are shows you live for and listen to the album for three months before and three months after.   Where am I going with this, though, and how does it relate to Wednesday 13?  Well, I was kinda pointing out that there is probably no single act still active that is as good as said translation than Wednesday 13.

Calling All Corpses is technically, if my numbers are correct, Wednesday 13’s fourth proper album.  There have been a few EP’s and reissues from the Frankenstein Drag Queens interspersed throughout the discography, but ultimately this is #4.  It’s also a return to form and, in my humble opinion, the strongest yet.  Where 2010’s was just heavy and dark, the tongue-in-cheek humor is back for Corpses.

From the opening salvo of “I Wanna Be Cremated” to the closing fist-pumper “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, you will be compelled to sing along to every chorus and headbang in your car, in the shower, folding laundry, or picking up toys.  I may be domesticated, but my inner teenager says, ‘Where do you come from?  THE DUST.  Where will you go to?  THE GRAVE.  Darkness soon falls.  Everyone calls.  Something wicked this way comes!’  I may even have to dedicate “We All Die” to my soon-to-be wife at our wedding….may go over like a lead balloon, but it may beat out “One Knife Stand” in the romance department.  (Yes, I’m giggling as I write this.)

This is horror punk rock.  If you’re looking for a kick in the pants that heavily influenced by The Ramones, the Damned and The Misfits, then pick this bad boy up.  You can thank me as you’re smashing your neighbors pumpkins while your kids get McDonalds coupons for free French fries on the trick-or-treat run next week.  Happy Halloween!

Grade: A