Walk Among Us
| Walk Among Us | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 The album cover combines imagery from the films The Angry Red Planet and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers with a photograph of the band's lineup at the time of the its release. Left to right: Jerry Only, Doyle, Glenn Danzig, and Arthur Googy. | ||||
| Studio album by the Misfits | ||||
| Released | March 1982 | |||
| Recorded | June 1981, August 1981, December 1981–January 1982 | |||
| Genre | Horror punk, hardcore punk | |||
| Length | 24:56 | |||
| Label | Ruby, Slash | |||
| Producer | Misfits | |||
| Misfits chronology | ||||
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Walk Among Us is the eighth release from the American horror punk band Misfits. The band's first full-length album to be released (although it was actually the third to be recorded, after Static Age and 12 Hits from Hell), it was originally co-released by Ruby and Slash Records as JRR804 in March 1982.
Album information
Walk Among Us is the product of a January 1982 recording session at Quad Teck in Los Angeles, California in which Glenn Danzig, for the most part, remixed previously recorded songs, overdubbing additional guitar tracks. Danzig also recorded new vocals for "Vampira" and mixed for the first time the live recording of "Mommy Can I Go Out & Kill Tonight?" that was recorded at the same time as the Evilive release.
The majority of the songs were originally recorded in a variety of sessions throughout early 1981 at the Mix-O-Lydian Studio in Boonton, New Jersey. The dates of these sessions are unknown, but they were all mixed at one time. "Vampira", "Devils Whorehouse", and "Astro Zombies" were recorded and mixed separately at Mix-O-Lydian in August 1981. "Hatebreeders" was recorded in June 1981 at Newsoundland in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. "Mommy Can I Go Out & Kill Tonight?", the only live track on the album, was recorded on December 17, 1981 at the Ritz in New York, New York.
The song "Astro Zombies" was inspired by the 1968 horror film Astro-Zombies.
The cover for Walk Among Us features the famous "Rat-Bat-Spider" that menaces the intrepid astronauts in 1959's The Angry Red Planet. The flying saucers were obtained from 1956's Earth Versus The Flying Saucers. The first LP pressing has a pink cover with a red logo, while the second pressing's cover is purple with a green logo.
Reissues since 1988 in all formats have featured the purple cover with a green logo. Strangely, the CD insert contains a picture of the 1979 lineup of the band with Bobby Steele and Joey Image, who didn't play on the album, instead of actual performers Doyle and Googy.
However, recent reissues of the CD have in fact contained Doyle and Googy in the insert, as opposed to Steele and Image.
Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
Allmusic rated the album 4.5/5 with the following review:
| “ | The Misfits' 1982 debut full-length, Walk Among Us, rapidly became a legendary effort of U.S. punk, the more so because it so willfully violated many rules which were already ironically straitjacketing the scene. Utterly devoid of political confrontation or social uplift, embracing a costume sense that might have given Kiss pause and generally coming across like the horror-movie nightmares they looked like on the cover, the Misfits just wanted to entertain and do their own thing -- and that they did, brilliantly. Nearly every song on the album -- 13 total, delivered in a light-speed 25 minutes -- is a twisted classic, with the band's trademark '50s/'60s melodies run through a punk/metal meatgrinder on full display. The higher-budget (in very relative terms) recording meant a slightly cleaner and brighter sound all around, but nothing about Walk Among Us is slick, especially in commercial 1982 terms. One song title says it all: "All Hell Breaks Loose." Danzig's gift for creepy, strong, and attractively dark singing was long since established and he uses it brilliantly, making the over-the-top lyrics all the more enjoyable, while Doyle, Jerry Only, and Arthur Googy kick out the jams on Danzig's songs big time -- check out "Hatebreeders," "Violent World," and the crazed "Skulls." Everything ends with the giddily ridiculous "Braineaters," in which the chanting voices of the band bemoan their constant diet of cerebella and ask for intestines instead, but the real freaked-out highlight comes smack dab in the middle with "Mommy Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight." Taken from the show that made up the Evilive release, it starts out on the edge and, after Danzig delivers the title sans instruments, turns into an explosion of rhythm and feedback that should have killed everything within 50 feet of the amps.[1] | ” |
Track listing
All songs written and composed by Glenn Danzig.| Side A | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | ||||||||
| 1. | "20 Eyes" | 1:41 | ||||||||
| 2. | "I Turned into a Martian" | 1:41 | ||||||||
| 3. | "All Hell Breaks Loose" | 1:47 | ||||||||
| 4. | "Vampira" | 1:26 | ||||||||
| 5. | "Nike-A-Go-Go" | 2:16 | ||||||||
| 6. | "Hate Breeders" | 3:08 | ||||||||
| 7. | "Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?" (live) | 2:01 | ||||||||
| Side B | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | ||||||||
| 1. | "Night of the Living Dead" | 1:57 | ||||||||
| 2. | "Skulls" | 2:00 | ||||||||
| 3. | "Violent World" | 1:46 | ||||||||
| 4. | "Devil's Whorehouse" | 1:45 | ||||||||
| 5. | "Astro Zombies" | 2:14 | ||||||||
| 6. | "Braineaters" | 0:56 | ||||||||
Total length: |
24:56 | |||||||||
Cancelled Plan 9 Version
All songs written and composed by Glenn Danzig.| Side A | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | ||||||||
| 1. | "20 Eyes" | |||||||||
| 2. | "I Turned Into a Martian" | |||||||||
| 3. | "Astro Zombies" | |||||||||
| 4. | "Vampira" | |||||||||
| 5. | "All Hell Breaks Loose" | |||||||||
| 6. | "Nike-A-Go-Go" | |||||||||
| 7. | "Devil's Whorehouse" | |||||||||
| Side B | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | ||||||||
| 1. | "Night of the Living Dead" | |||||||||
| 2. | "Skulls" | |||||||||
| 3. | "Violent World" | |||||||||
| 4. | "Horror Hotel" | |||||||||
| 5. | "Ghoul's Night Out" | |||||||||
| 6. | "American Nightmare" | |||||||||
Personnel
Band
- Glenn Danzig – vocals, guitar on "Vampira", "Devils Whorehouse", "Astro Zombies", overdubbed guitar on all tracks except "Mommy Can I Go Out & Kill Tonight?"
- Jerry Only – bass, background vocals
- Doyle – guitar, background vocals on "Hatebreeders", "Vampira", "Devils Whorehouse", "20 Eyes", "I Turned Into a Martian"
- Arthur Googy – drums
Production
- Mike Taylor – engineer on all tracks except "Hatebreeders"
- Pat Burnette – engineer on "Hatebreeders"
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Raggett, Ned. "Walk Among Us - Misfits". Allmusic. Retrieved 25 November 2005.
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