Goons of Doom - The Story Of Dead Barbie And Ghost

The Goons of Doom are off-kilter, goofy and a bit sinister. They also seem focused on not taking themselves seriously; as a result, they made a really great album.

Fronted by pro-surfer Ozzie Wright (a.k.a. Fang Fite Ozzie Wrong, The Wizard of Death), the Goons were formed on the set of the surf film Wasted Youth, where they played the part of a band. They decided that was enough fun that they were going to continue with it. It was a good choice.

The album is all over the place, sometimes garagey, sometimes straight-up punk, and even occasionally descending into a melodic discordant sound that sounds a bit like the tour buses for Sonic Youth and the Pixies collided, leaving no survivors, such as on the goofy "Bikey Zombie", a song about surfing, motorcycles and zombies.

The band rolls smoothly under the dual vocals of Wrong, who sounds like an Australian Iggy Pop, and his co-vocalist Bang Bang Bunny Fang, who has a beautiful voice that she varies from crooning on the soft drifting "Leaving Song" to "My Song", a crunchy garage rocker where she belts out the line "This is my song so get it going on" in a way that makes me think of (and once you hear it you'll know what I mean) PIL-era Johnny Rotten. If he were a woman. And if he could actually sing.

The two voices compliment each other well. On "Wimps", the pair sing a fun duet about cannibalism on the beach, eating human flesh "with just a little twist of lime". Fang also provides soft backup to Wrong on "Hello Kitty", a song that compares Hello Kitty with Bunny, a dark counterpart to Hello Kitty, intent on killing her.

Yep, motorcycles, zombies, cannibalism and killing Hello Kitty. This is the essence of the Goons; it's OK to be dark and a bit twisted, provided you're having fun with it. If you like bad horror flicks and good punk rock with no pretension, check out The Story Of Dead Barbie And Ghost. It's juvenile and violent in a cartoonish way - sure to appeal to the 13 year-old boy in all of us.