Deathrock
4 vinyl records found
Deathrock is a West Coast punk subgenre that surfaced in 1979, blending horror atmospherics with post-punk rhythms and introspective, often surreal lyrics. The style pulls from 1950s novelty death-themed rock, theatrical hard rock, and horror cinema, creating a sound defined by echoing guitars, prominent bass, and vocalists capable of conveying complex emotion through distinctive performances.
About the Deathrock genre
The deathrock name itself carries layered history. In the 1950s, "death rock" labeled a brief genre spike of morbid teenage-death songs like The Shangri-Las' Leader of the Pack and Jody Reynolds' Endless Sleep. The term resurfaced 15 years later when West Coast punk bands adopted it, likely originating from Rozz Williams of Christian Death, the music press recycling the vintage label, or Nick Zedd's 1979 film They Eat Scum featuring the fictional band Suzy Putrid and the Mental Deficients. The genre has no connection to death metal despite surface similarities; deathrock sits firmly within punk lineage.
Musical foundations run deep into horror-influenced rock. Early deathrock acts traced roots to novelty performers like Bobby Boris Pickett, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and Screaming Lord Sutch, who used sound effects and campy horror themes throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. Alice Cooper and Kiss provided crucial theatrical hard rock touchstones, with Rozz Williams and 45 Grave both citing those 1970s acts as formative influences. Broader rock lineage included The Cramps, The Damned, David Bowie, The Velvet Underground, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Beyond music, deathrock drew visual and thematic material from George A. Romero zombie films, Italian horror cinema, TV shows like Dark Shadows and The Twilight Zone, and horror hosts such as Vampira and Elvira. Surrealism, film noir, cabaret, and religious imagery (particularly Catholic and Voodoo iconography) rounded out the palette.
The Los Angeles scene became deathrock's epicenter, with documentation tracking the genre's emergence through bands like The Flesh Eaters, 45 Grave, Christian Death, Gun Club, and Kommunity FK, all active between 1977 and the early 1980s. Deathrock songs typically employ simple chord structures, repetitive post-punk beats in 4/4 time, and scratchy or echoing guitars to build atmosphere, placing considerable vocal weight on singers to convey isolation, disillusionment, and existential themes through both harsh and melodic delivery.