Dead Man's Bones - Dead Man's Bones (Featuring the Silverlake Conservatory of Music Children's Choir)

Cringing at actor side-projects has become a natural reaction given the bevy of sour outcomes. But award Ryan Gosling a chance, for his partnership with fellow horror fan Zach Shields has yielded a first-rate macabre soundtrack for the Halloween season. Originally envisioned as stage production, Dead Man's Bones has the heft of grandeur, yet a number of rules kept it from over-inflating. Besides eliminating electric guitars and click tracks and including a kid's choir, they constrained themselves further with allowing only three takes for any performance. With such self-imposed amateurism, it's a wonder how they've accomplished such a realized spectral musical. Howling ghouls accents "Dead Hearts" as shattering glass confuses the cymbals and the thudding bass drum recalls Poe's beating heart beneath the floorboard. A greasy Cramps-like bashing romp stains "In The Room Where You Sleep", while "My Body's A Zombie For You" starts as a 50's line stroll, ending with a fully exuberant choir hand-clapping and cheerleading in unison: "I'm a Z-O-M / B-I-E. Zombie!" A bewildering surprise from an unlikely source, Dead Man's Bones is magical listen.