Why is The Murder City Devils’ In Name and Blood on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
Spooky cool carnivalesque organ against Misfits-ish dirty, fast-paced hardcore punk? Uh, yes please.
What does The Murder City Devils’ In Name and Blood mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
I’ve always been a sucker for a great, carnivalesque organ thrown against rock music. I like a carnivalesque organ just fine on its own too, sure – and if you hear an organ at a carnival would we just call it organ music? But I digress.
And I’m sure I first heard Ray Manzarek’s devilishly dark blues meets classically trained organ on The Doors’ “Break on Through” at precisely the right age for it and music of its ilk to be hardwired in my musical pleasure center.
Which brings us to The Murder City Devils’ In Name and Blood, which on many of its tracks pits a spooky cool carnivalesque organ against very Misfits-ish dirty, fast-paced hardcore punk. And then throw in a dusting of influences ranging from Alice Cooper to The Transplants for good measure. The result is pretty great.
“Press Gang” is a great example, delightfully dark and spooky with a slow, trudgy hardcore punk vibe that works really well. And that organ, whoo!
“Run to Whiskey” takes that vibe and throws in a little Graham Day & The Gaolers’ (hard drinking) flavor.
And then I’m getting a little Rancid sprinkled over the top on “Bunkhouse.”
This album also sounds like
Collecting the influences I mention above: let’s include The Doors for the fundamentals, then Alice Cooper, The Transplants, Rancid, The Misfits, and Graham Day & The Gaolers. Good group to be in!
Some stats & info about The Murder City Devils – In Name and Blood
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Hardcore Punk, Punk, Punk Rock, Hard Rock, Garage Punk, Seattle Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was In Name and Blood released? 2000
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #904 out of 1,000
The Murder City Devils’ In Name and Blood on Spotify
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective take on what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.