Review of Blitzkid - Let Flowers Die

This is another re-release of an earlier album by horror punk aficionados Blitzkid with new artwork but the same set of songs. But where 2003’s Trace Of A Stranger had decent production, they really dropped the ball by not remastering this while they had the chance. The production sounds like those shitty straight from the board live albums that magically appear a few years after a band has broken up. You know, bad lo-fi without purposefully trying to be bad lo-fi. This does give it a bit of that out of tune, muddy guitar charm found on Legacy Of Brutality, so it fits within their whole aesthetic, but it seems like these days any Tom, Dick and Harry can record better sounding stuff on a home computer.

After a too fast punk song (at least for this style) with barked vocals opener and a pseudo grunge cut following, Blitzkid finally manage to slide into their comfortable groove of early Misfits inspired horror punk. Unlike the later Trace Of A Stranger, this album has a few more overt pop flourishes that remind me somewhat of early Fiendz, who also belted out a strong brand of poppy Misfits inspired punk rock. But while I enjoyed a few songs, much like the few strong songs on Trace Of A Stranger, there’s some serious filler here. A few songs rely heavily on stock beginning guitar lesson riffs/song structures that are so familiar that you will recognize them in the first few seconds of your first listen. Why they chose to include what sound like practice songs amongst the otherwise decent original material is a little baffling. Writing three or four good songs per album seems to be the M.O. for this band so it’s too bad they don’t just stick with 7” records instead of full lengths.

Like Trace Of A Stranger, there’s some fun sing along songs on here but, outside of the singer, Blitzkid was only slightly better than your average Misfits inspired high school band at this point in time. From the recording to the songwriting, this effort is second rate at best and probably didn’t need to be dragged out of the vault for another spin. So, unless you have to own any and all horror punk regardless of quality, I’d skip this re-release.

Release Details

Blitzkid

Let Flowers Die

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