Wolfmen Of Mars : The Obsolete Illusion

I think the first time I’d ever heard Wolfmen of Mars was on a compilation called SNDTRK, which came out back in 2016 on the now long dead Disco Cinematic Recordings. There was a who’s who of heavy synth artists on that album including Slasher Film Festival Strategy, Xander Harris, Repeated Viewing and an East Coast band called Wolfmen of Mars with their killer track “Technicolor Road”.

The band’s sound is equal parts eerie synth, 70s grooves, and doom-y metal that brings to mind everything from The Munsters to Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Saturday Morning Cartoons on mescaline. There’s a campiness mixed with unease, as if finding some ancient copy of Weird Tales and while leafing through it you realize the pages were covered in LSD. Which if you ask me is always a recipe for an epic good time.

Hit up their Bandcamp and you’ll see these cats waste no time continually putting out great horror-adjacent grooves. From Digital Penetration to The Light in the Corner of Your Eye to their Boogeyman Pop soundtrack to 2023s Lying Low… In the Age of Psychic Warfare, Wolfmen of Mars are always working on new musical nightmares. Their latest, The Obsolete Illusion, is a twangy slap in the face that feels like some horror western jamboree that takes place in some interdimensional Tombstone, Arizona. Big synths, big riffs, and bigger grooves work to take you out of the current nightmare we’re living through and put you in another. But one that’s a hell of a lot more fun.

Wolfmen of Mars makes the best kind of nightmare music. It’s the kind that goes well with an ice cold beer, some mellow bud, and psyching yourself out on a breezy walk home at dusk. “Don’t Let The Door Hit You In The Dick” opens things on a propulsive mix of jangly guitar and synth. It would be the perfect opener for a cosmic Sergio Leone western where the man with no name is going through an existential crisis and has a huffing problem. And really, have you heard a better song name this year? “Grade D But Edible” is a wonky synth banger that’s equal parts DEVO and a cemetery version of ‘spin the bottle’. And a hefty portion of spoiled Boone’s Farm.

There’s just nothing more fun and satisfying than hearing Wolfmen of Mars go full 50s Ed Wood-meets-Anton LaVey-meets-Helloween like they do on “Combat Chops”. What’s better than shredding guitar played over what sounds like some D&D, Castlevania-like neo-classical jam? Or the chugging “Manners of Death” that seems to combine 8-bit vibes with speed metal riffage. And “Killing Time…On The Prison Planet” is pure spaced-out sci-fi jams, all woozy synths and guitar shred.

There really is no better time than Halloween to have new Wolfmen of Mars drop into our undead laps. The Obsolete Illusion will fill those fun-size musical cravings.