Forget your vampires, (although I will defend True Blood), but it really has been the year of the zombie with a slew of films being made and major new series The Walking Dead going out in America with no adverts and really capturing viewers attention. One film that may slip you by of the many out there is ‘Zombie Driftwood’ a tale set with zombies in one of their natural habitats, the desert island, the sort of place where all the Italian masters of the genre filmed on the cheap to great effect. In a novel twist, the battle involves metal heads against the living dead and actually features October File who naturally appear on the soundtrack. I’m not going too much into the plot as you will find a review of the film along with this on these very pages, this is very much all about the soundtrack here.
I have to admit being a bit of a purist, I do collect soundtracks and keep them separate from my other CD’s and I do like them to be a cinematic score rather than made up of rock, metal or whatever genre songs. Having said that, occasionally such projects can work and accentuate a film and stand up in their own right; notable examples to this include ‘Judgement Night,’ ‘The Crow,’ House Of 1000 Corpses’ and pretty much anything Tarantino touches. One of the stars and an executive producer of the film Steve Beatty owns Candlelight Records and so it is natural that his band October File and others on the label get in on the action and make up this soundtrack. I for one am not faulting any of the music on this in the slightest, in fact I have reviewed the bulk of the albums these tracks have come from throughout the year and they are all excellent.
In effect I get the impression that this could have just as easily been an end of year compilation showcasing the labels talents but as the film came about it was another way of presenting them. A couple of tracks here really are cinematic and totally suit the horror genre in their own right. Gnaw Their Tongues for example is an artist that I very much thought needed a soundtrack of their own and the nightmarish symphonic sprawl of ‘L'Arrivée de la Terne Mort Triomphante’ really is a chilling treatise of palpable dread. Similarly you have Blood Of Kingu going at things with a battering fury and’ Those That Wander Amidst The Stars’ is a perfect title for a song on a zombie movie. Roman Saenko’s roar is demonic in the extreme and if the living dead were capable of vocalisation it probably would sound something like this. Altar Of Plagues, Wodensthrone and Winterfylleth are all atmospheric and evocatively stirring bands and their tracks are wholly welcome, as for Indian extremists Demonic Resurrection, placing them on a zombie soundtrack could only be a no brainer.
The film is around 75 minutes and so is the soundtrack, all of it exceptional and virtually everything, with the exception of the inclusion of Emperor ‘Thus Spake The Nightspirit,’ recent. You do get to hear plenty of snippets of the songs in the film itself and they are well represented throughout the feature helping drive along pacing and narrative. I think there is a lot of crossover with extreme movie fans liking extreme music and even if Zombie Driftwood is more of a comedy horror a lot of people enjoying it should identify with the music. If not hopefully they will go away from the experience with a smile on their face and a shopping list of bands to go out and discover. They best do so quickly though before that impending zombie apocalypse eradicates all remaining human life from the planet.
http://www.zombiedriftwood.com
http://www.candlelightrecords.co.uk
