The Duke of Spook is back with a vengeance!
Known, among other things, as the iconic frontman for Frankenstein Drag Queens from Planet 13, Murderdolls and Bourbon Crow, Joseph “Wednesday 13” Poole (vocals) joins forces in 2025 with Roman Surman (lead guitar), Jack Tankersley (guitar), Troy Doebbler (bass) and Mike Dupke (drums) to unveil his tenth album, Mid Death Crisis, on Napalm Records.
We start with the ominous introduction There’s No Such Things As Monsters, where a voice opens the doors to the album, and abandons us as soon as the catchy rhythm of Decease and Desist grabs us, with a few creepy leads worthy of B-movie horror. Wednesday 13’s vocal parts reinforce the track’s menacing tone, before returning to a motivating groove on When The Devil Commands, where the martial march is just the thing to welcome the band’s backing vocals and a few Industrial-sounding leads. Punk roots take on a dark energy on Rotting Away, making it one of the liveliest tracks on the album, and certainly a weapon of choice for future live performances, while No Apologies returns to Old School patterns to recapture the liveliness of the early days, thanks in particular to some crazy harmonics and the participation of Taime Downe (Faster Pussycat). The tone remains much the same with Decapitation, which carries us along in its dance for a little over two minutes, including some very gentle parts, before moving on to the melancholy touch of In Misery, which develops between the leads and the vocals. Blood Storm begins with a relatively pessimistic and slow approach, but the track quickly returns to its simplistic Old School Punk tones, before Xanaxtasy returns to the Goth touch that makes the sound rather heavy, although the riffs remain accessible and heady. I Hurt You returns to dark melancholy in both Roman‘s guitar and Wednesday‘s lyrics, then My Funeral offers strong heavy influences to accompany the melodies, which are strangely catchy for the subject matter. The album closes with the virulent Sick and Violent, already sounding like one of the band’s next anthems, and also promising some great, unifying crowd movements.
Wednesday 13 remains true to himself, offering a raw straightforward Punk sound on Mid Death Crisis, with occasional ominous, morbid tones and their usual cynicism. It remains to be seen which compositions will stand up to the live test!
80/100
Interview coming soon.