A couple of years ago, I purchased All Hallow’s E.P. by AFI… man, this is a cool Horror Punk gem. Released on November 3, 1999, on Nitro Records, this is AFI when they were creating Horror Punk and it is worth every penny I spent on it. A tidy E.P. it is, with four songs that are lathered with quality Horror Punk attitude and speed. Davey Havok on lead vocals sounds vintage, even though it has only been about a decade since this E.P.’s release. Every time I listen to All Hallow’s E.P., I walk away believing Davey Havok was born to sing this style of Punk Rock. I could listen all day to this Horror Punk style of AFI. I have been currently rummaging through my Metal and Punk Music collection, sifting through the spooky titles of both albums and songs and putting them on my daily rotation of music listening. Horror Punk will always stand out when searching for the creepy tunes, All Hallow’s E.P. is an obvious choice. With the Halloween season knocking at my Metal doorstep, rounding up the scary stuff to listen to has become an annual right of Horror passage for me.
The four songs on All Hallow’s E.P. are: Fall Children, Halloween, The Boy Who Destroyed The World and TotalImmortal. (That is not a typo, there is not supposed to be a space between the words Total Immortal for this song title). Halloween is a cover song, originally written and sung by Glenn Danzig when he fronted the legendary Misfits. AFI covers Halloween with all deserved and spooked out respect. The built in mechanism of the lyrics, coupled with the musical undertones of dread, makes these four songs explode with the dynamics of Horror Punk. My favorite track is… a tie. So, my favorite tracks are Halloween (due to it being a Misfits cover song and it is unreal good) and TotalImmortal. Being the last song out of the four, TotalImmortal is really the exclamation point of All Hallow’s E.P., it has the unrestrained Punk Rock energy that leaves me yearning for more of these songs from AFI.
AFI as they appeared on All Hallow’s E.P.:
Davey Havok on vocals
Jade Puget on guitar
Hunter on bass
Adam Carson on drums
Motorhead and Anthrax. Each band is a prominent member in the Metal Music world. Motorhead and Anthrax have always hinted, albeit with Metal stylings, their musical taste for Punk Rock Music. Both of these legendary Metal bands covered the Sex Pistols classic “God Save The Queen” from the “Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols” album, (released in October of 1977). This song was written of course, by Paul Cook, Steve Jones, John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) and Glen Matlock. Both cover versions are really cool and heavy, with Motorhead having their unmistakable, heavy coated vocals and bass guitar of Lemmy Kilmister leading the way. You know it’s Motorhead when you hear their cover of this prolific song… no pretensions, no frills, no sugar coating. The Motorhead cover version of “God Save The Queen” can be found on the “We Are Motorhead” album, (released on May 16, 2000). The Anthrax cover version is found on the EP – “Armed And Dangerous”, (released in February of 1985). In my Metal opinion, Anthrax covers “God Save The Queen” with convincing Punk Rock attitude, the reasons for this lays in the lead vocals of Joey Belladonna as well as the backing vocals. Musically, Anthrax is right on the Punk Rock bulls eye, which always led me to believe this particular lineup could have experimented even more with Punk Rock songs.
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