The Devil's Song is the accompanying book to Boogeyman's self titled debut album; you can check out the album review right here.This 49 page story is the brainchild of Arizona based horrorpunk trio Boogeyman who wrote the songs to their album with this story in mind. They teamed up with friend and writer Edward Kearns continuing the story within the concept and put the ideas into words. Combine this with illustrations from artist Monster Mark Kosobucki and you have the whole package and a fully immersive insight into the world of Boogeyman.
Like a short movie The Devil's Song gets straight into the main story. It begins with Ezekiel, a young man who has been blind from birth, one of his only friends is his Grandfather. On the day of his Grandfathers funeral Ezekiel is visited by a malignant spirit known as The Presence who gifts Ezekiel with sight. Unfortunately for Ezekiel he not only sees his home town of Whisper Creek but the thousands of tortured souls within who follow and torment him. With the help of his Grandfathers spirit, an old friend and the candle of six days (track 9 on the album) Ezekiel must stop The Presence and free the tortured souls from his grasp. As with many tales of horror it is never straight forward for the protagonists concerned so you need to check it out for yourself to find out what happens.
It is written with a wide audience in mind and would most likely appeal to older kids as well as just us grown up kids. It's certainly not overly graphic in description or illustration. It's creepy more than it is gory or violent. It uses short sentences, sometimes just only one word statements. This gives it a kind of comic book feel to the story which inflects a feeling of unease and delivers a sense of urgency when needed which is very effective. Occasionally because of these short sentences and abrupt words I did think it made it a bit disjointed at times... maybe a bit confused, but you could argue that that was exactly the kind of feelings they were aiming to evoke in the reader which would be exactly how Ezekiel would have felt. So if that is the case then they totally nailed it!! The illustrations throughout are great with a fantastic use of colour and darkness. As I said earlier they are not overly graphic yet still conjure a great image of the individual tortured souls. I love the fact that The Devil's Song came out after their album proving that music and verse are powerful things and that music alone can conjure and inspire a whole host of mediums to continue the creativity.
The Devil's Song is a fun accompaniment to Boogeyman's back catalogue and I love how the two elements marry up so well together. I am certainly excited to see what will come next from the band. They have created their own multiverse from this story so it could go anywhere. Will it be a continuation of Ezekiel's story? Will it be from another resident of Whisper Creek? Where and when will The Presence show itself again? I'm hoping all this and more will be answered on album number 2 which I have heard they are currently working on... very exciting stuff!!
The Devil's Song and Boogeyman the album are both available through Boogeyman's Bandcamp page. The Devils Song very recently sold out from it's first press but be assured that more copies will be available very soon.
