400 Lonely Things – Tonight of the Living Dead

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cosmo
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400 Lonely Things – Tonight of the Living Dead

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400 Lonely Things – Tonight of the Living Dead



" 400 Lonely Things have taken one of the greatest horror films of all time, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and have sampled bits and pieces from the soundtrack of the film and have created an aural sensory overload of impending doom, fear, and psychosis all in one big fell swoop. Memories and images from the 1968 zombie film eerily crept in and out of my head while listening to the nine-song album.

At first listen, I did not even know what to make of it, as there are definite samples and portions taken from the film (of which Romero had crew and cast member Karl Hardman create under his supervision from pre-existing recordings in stock film music libraries that had already been used in other films and TV. shows) and 400 Lonely Things have used samples from the film itself and remixed them (many samples intact with their Foley work) and created Tonight of the Living Dead, a project a year in the making. Accompanying this surreal and unique project is a 12-page booklet of “treated imagery” taken from the film itself.

“It Begins” was the most noticeably sampled bits of music from Night of the Living Dead that I can remember and this reworking of the original score gave me the most chills. Highly atmospheric and utterly creepy, I liked this song the most. It created a feeling of impending doom and horror, sounds crawling in and out on different levels, the sampling of the original soundtrack sprinkled with sound-bytes of modern-day technology.

Just when the song fades out, the smoke dissipating, “Tonight” takes over, creating another feeling of uneasiness, keeping the listener on edge, probably in much the same way that Romero kept his audiences as they sat in the movie theaters watching Night of the Living Dead for the very first time in 1968. This track is more than twice as long as the opening song, running at just over eight minutes, and is broken up into segments with similar but completely different sounds and elements of eerie tones.

One thing listening to this album will do is have you yearning to pop in Night of the Living Dead on DVD again and seeing if the sounds heard on the CD can be found within the film. Maybe that is what 400 Lonely Things intentions were, not only paying homage to a great film but finding another medium and audience in a more modern era for fans of horror to look back upon and appreciate. In the day and age of sampling music from hip-hop and jungle to techno, ambient, and rave/hardcore, Tonight of the Living Dead has an almost regality to their style of music, one of classiness and austere reverence to the genre of horror.

Night of the Living Dead was as much a zombie film as it was a journey into psychological warfare on the mind. Dealing with the impossible, the unimaginable, and the truly unthinkable. Tonight of the Living Dead recaptures that nightmare in each and every song. “This Old House” continues with the whole mood of the album and builds upon the prior track, “Tonight”, but once “The Music Box” begins, I felt that the album takes a turn for the better. The song is over thirteen minutes long, building up until the five-minute mark and then easing back down from the climax, until the track just goes dead silent.

“No Answer” is some more of the same, probably the track I enjoyed the least, but “Crickets Window” won me over with the sampling of, you got it- crickets, but is accompanied by some of the darkest samples in the whole album. The song builds up, layer upon layer of new impending doom taking the listener farther and farther into a long winding tunnel of terror. There even seems to be sounds very reminiscent of our dear friend Jason Voorhees and the soundtrack that Harry Manfredini made famous in the Friday the 13th slasher flicks. This track totally blew me away. “Crickets Window” could easily be the soundtrack for every nightmare you have had and will ever have. As we started with crickets chirping, we end with crickets chirping.

With “Cellar Company” there are noticeable Foley sounds from the film, looped in and out, creating a break almost from the intensity of some of the prior songs. Again, not one of my favorites and after “Crickets Window”, it really lacked the intensity I was hoping for. But not to worry, “Another Fire Always Smiles” wraps up the whole gut-munching zombie mix, reminding listeners of a time when films did not have happy endings, in much the same way that life really is and can be, a tragedy in the making.

With most of the album blowing me away and thrusting my head with drab, gothic black and white imagery from Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead, I had to go to the 400 Lonely Things website and take a peek at the imagery that is to accompany this album. Its truly awesome, as well as the music video that accompanies the track “Tonight” "

http://www.buyzombie.com/2010/03/10/fea ... ving-dead/
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