John Carpenter: Lost Themes III - Alive After Death

- Have you, like me dear listener, dreamt of the perfect new wave gothic instrumental album to score your every pensive, moody soliloquy? For the late night strolls through the best parts of your local cemetery (it’s the thick pine area of Toowong cemetery if you’re wondering) and drives through the backstreets as bats swarm overhead and the hairs on the back of your neck start to rise as you contemplate the haunted, colonialist history of the city - smoke pluming from the Pauls factory and a neon glow from GOMA casts an otherworldly gleam over the black river below? Then have I got an album for you, my fellow PVC clad tropical goths & darkwave darklings: the mistero of understanded yet unrelenting horror scapes hath returned!

Lost Themes III: Alive After Death is the newest release from the trinity of Father, son & the holy godson; John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies who return with the first album of non-soundtrack music for Carpenter Snr in nearly five years. Following the release of 2016’s Lost Themes II Carpenter embarked on his first-ever concert tour, performing material from the Lost Themes albums and music from his beloved film scores. In 2017, Carpenter re-recorded many of his classic movie themes for his Anthology album, alongside son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies. It’s here on Lost Themes III we experience their collaborative, creative mind meld in its full, interwoven glory. Having composed and performed as a trio throughout the entire run of live shows spanning three continents, studio albums & soundtracks - the nuanced interplay between Davies’ guitar and the dueling synthesizers commanded by the Carpenters is pure, body horror beauty. Their talents for tension & storytelling fuse together much like Kennel-Thing aka Dog-Thing - the multi headed mutant kanine from Carpenters 1982 classic, The Thing.

Lost Themes III sits perfectly between Naretha Williams’ 2020 industrial organ masterpiece, Blak Mass, the work of the king of Canadian dark dancefloor hits, Kontravoid and Colombian minimal synth electorpunk, Filmmaker, The Cure’s short film soundtrack Carnage Visors & your collection of Castlevania DVDs. And, look if these names of sinister synth & darkwave glory mean nothing to you, think - the Stranger Things soundtrack, but done right by one of the OGs himself.

There’s an obvious yet satisfying structure to the album and even in each song, following the proven yet at times predictable Three-act structure. Act one: the set up, Act two: the confrontation, Act Three: the resolution. And while this veiled formula, along with some of the albums more corny moments (Track five: Vampires Touch I’m looking at you) might irritate listeners who adore the meandering & mysterious musical journey of longform doom, dungeon synth & OSTs - there’s an undeniable charm to the formula that effectively builds the sense your glimpsing just fragmented vignettes of something much larger -or parts of a soundtrack- as the composer himself notes “for the movies in your mind.”

So, while the director’s third standalone release isn’t necessarily innovative, it is comforting in the same way putting on your favourite vintage horror flick is: you know what's coming, you love what’s coming, you've seen it a hundred times but, buy the box of Hellraiser, you’ll do it all over again.

It feels incredibly strange to critique & review a filmmaker I revere as much as Carpenter the “master of terror and suspense”- director, writer & composer of favorites such as The Thing! They Live! The Prince Of Darkness! Halloween! In The Mouth of Madness & Big Trouble In Little China over twenty iconic soundtracks. But here I am, doing it. Lost Themes III - four Michael Myers Masks out of five.

- Dominique Furphy.