Roky Erickson & The Explosives - Halloween

 Post-13th Floor Elevators, Texan stargazer Roky Erickson hopped on board the ghost train and started banging out tunes full of surrealist hellfire and brimstone. This smoking double platter finds the great man hooking up with The Explosives for some blastin’ ghoulish takes from 1979-81, recorded in California and his native Lone Star State. Songs such as Two Headed Dog (containing the immortal line, “Two headed dog, two headed dog, I’ve been working in the Kremlin with a two headed dog”), I Think Up Demons, Don’t Shake Me Lucifer and Stand For The Fire Demon point towards where Erickson’s creative mind was at, while also flagging up possible signs of further mental illness (he had already been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia). But the sickest things on display here are Erickson’s raucous holler and the blistering guitar work of Cam King. The match between Erickson and The Explosives is clearly one made in heaven (suck up that irony) and you can hear enough to understand why, when Erickson makes his rare forays onto the live circuit, he chooses this group, out of the many he’s played with, to accompany him. Oh, and there’s a kick ass version of the Elevators’ You’re Gonna Miss Me too. Hail Satan!