12 Step Rebels have scared, shook up and maybe even seduced their way into the hearts and undead souls of Albuquerque music fans for decades. This weekend they’re revving up your engine with new music and a monster party at The Launchpad with fellow fiends Kats of Horror, Straight From the Grave and Shit Outta Luck. They’ve decided to combine their record vinyl release show with a 25th anniversary concert and “make a big much ado about it.” Singer and guitarist Jacob Insane says the band put a lot of work and effort into the new album, which they recorded locally at Folklore Recording Studios in Albuquerque. He had the time of his life recording this one, and the spine-chilling cover art was created by someone very dear to him: his daughter Ada Zoe Zgela. He says he gave her the title of the record to work with, and she surprised him with a Christmas painting depicting her interpretation of the grim reaper.
“In the late ’90s and early 2000s, records were starting to phase out because they were getting too expensive to produce, and CDs are so cheap,” he says. “Our first full length came out in 2004, and we never released another one. We had splits and seven inches and singles, but we never put out another full length for various reasons. And so finally, 21 years later, we got to put out another full-length album, and we wanted to make sure we put it on vinyl.”
The new music will satiate the appetites of ravenous punks, rockabilly revivalists and horror-heads alike, but Jakob Insane says The Darkness Calls Us All addresses gloomy themes – death, loss, longing and overcoming darkness – in a more serious nature than you might expect from a typical horror punk record. Upright bassist Nate Hancock also sings and writes lyrics, so he adds a couple of intense poetic contributions to their latest creative endeavor. Drummer Mad Dog Chad lays down rhythms that will get people dancing as if they’re atop the tomb of an ex lover, and that can be a good thing – depending on your attitude regarding the living. Jacob Insane says you’ll hear some “true stories about the darker side of life.”…