I’ll never forget the way that little green turd from the cover of Ghoulies 2 stared back at me in the vibrant video-rental shops of Post Falls, Idaho; if movie covers could talk, that one would have said, “Good luck sleeping again, fucker!” That was then, this is now, and the Cool Ghouls are just like me: They wanna live a natural life. But what exactly does that entail in this day and age? (And are vinyls and cassettes ‘natural’?) Do we have to live in tents in the middle of fields to enjoy a consequence-free environment? I say no: Throw on Cool Ghouls and you can have your rock and beat it, too. Tuning in/out is easy when the chords swing in that psychedelic-rock ‘n’ roll style, the rhythms plod along satisfactorily, swimmingly you might even say, and the vocals, against all odds, hold up their end of the bargain melodically and lyrically. What’s amazing to me is how few comparisons I am ready to throw out there. Despite tiny pinches of this and that, Cool Ghouls’ sound is elusive. Production work from Tim Cohen is revealing, yet Fresh & Onlys aren’t what I would call a kindred spirit when the rubber hits the record. Some of those Nuggets bands possessed a similar guitar sound, and The Seeds/Byrds/Tyde certainly aren’t strangers to the CG abode, but I can’t in good conscience ‘name names’ beyond that. You’ll have to just trust me and the good people at Burger and Empty Cellar, reliable hands if there ever were ones.
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