Messer Chups - Church Of Reverb (CD Review)

01.Cemetery Beach
02.Surf 'N' Rolla
03.Less Playboy More Cowboy
04.Mickey Rat
05.Zamboanga
06.Paore Pizzicato
07.Sallon "Bloodweiser"
08.Rockin' Zombie
09.Black Saoole
10.Dracula Hates Photoshoots
11.Human Jungle
12.Hula Tikula
13.Harlem Nocturne
14.Popcorno Revenge

Zombie Girl (Vocal/Bass)
Dr.Boris (Drums)
Gitaracula (Guitar)

Messer Chups is an experimental band from St.Petersburg, Russia. The band was founded by Oleg Gitarkin who had previously performed with Oleg Kostrow under the name of Messer für Frau Müller. Messer Chups is often considered a "spin-off" band of Messer für Frau Müller. The band was originally a duo of Gitarkin on bass guitar and Annette Schneider who played the synths. In period 2000-2002 Messer Chups consists of Gitarkin and Igor Vdovin on Synth.

In 2003, the producer of Messer Chups and head of homelabel Solnze Records, Oleg Tarasov, invited the world famous theremin player, Lydia Kavina, to join them. Together they have released several albums and reworked their previous releases. In 2005, Messer Chups became a duo consisting of Gitarkin and ZombieGirl on bass. In 2007, they became a trio, with drummer Denis "Kashey" Kuptzov from the famous band, Leningrad.
In 2008, they changed their drummer to Alexander Belkok, and Alexander Skvortzov became their vocalist.

Messer Chups' music often features a foundation of surf drums on which they build collages of samples from odd sources, like jazz, east European animation soundtracks, and American B-pictures. On top of that they lay guitar solos and theremin.

Sounding like a mixture of the "Chantays" and Dick Dale the majority of these tracks are classic surf/rockabilly instrumentals.

'Rockin Zombie' has a great vocal sounding like vampira, also some great sax playing in the mix.

'Dracula Hates Photoshoots' is a great fun song and to be honest the whole album is fun!

Rating 9/10

For Fans Of : Dick Dale, Fuzztones, Misfits, Link Wray, Vince Ray