Give it tentacles for a beard, Pterodactyl wings, one big eye, and an English accent, and we’ll call it Steve.
In the past, I’d probably have a problem admitting that wonderfully awful idea was mine. But if you’re going to make a monster, you might as well own it. I read a book about that once. Luckily, the one good thing about getting older is you really care less and less what people think, so now I have little qualms about my embarrassing inclinations. Yes, every good movie should have at least one robot. Yes, I really do believe Marky Mark is more creative than Mark Rothko. And well, sometime I build monsters (just for fun — nothing too serious).
Legion of Horribles is my latest monster. It’s poorly made, it’s not pretty, it’s loud and slimy, but it’s also a bunch of stuff I love dissected into pieces and parts and then restitched into a Frankenstein of fun. We start off with 24 songs by artists that are outcasts. They are too aggressive, too experimental, and too creative for life in the mainstream. They swim against all currents. Take track 24 for example. It’s an autobiographical balled sung by Laura Jane Grace (born Nov. 8, 1980, as Thomas James Gabel), who recently became the most famous transgender punk rocker on the planet. She’s also a ferocious explorer of the creative unknown, and this album is also an ode to that.
These songs (almost all of them released in and around 2014) are matched with sound captures from five of my favorite influences — nerdy sci-fi classics like X Minus One, The Black Hole, The Children of Men, The Road Warrior, Sunshine and The Thing. Perhaps you’ll enjoy the motifs of procreation, domesticity, and the definition of one’s self by one’s opposite — all coated with ghoulish Enlightenment aesthetics. Or maybe you’ll just enjoy the rad music mix. Like many monsters, this album is also a case of trying too hard. That’s not difficult to see, and that doesn’t embarrass me either.
I just hope it goes a little way in getting your personal monsters out of the closet. The download links are below — in both MP3 and FLAC formats — properly tagged and included with high resolution artwork (in case you’d like to print out the album art).
Legion of Horribles (MP3 Format)
Legion of Horribles (FLAC Format)
What is FLAC?
Pro Tips for downloading: The links above take you to a public Google drive.
To make it easy, just download the zip file (it contains the entire album and artwork), or download each individual track (but you have to do one at a time).
Track Listing
1. Trouble in Paradise – Unkle
2. Holdin’ On – Flume
3. Interpret Sabotage – Black Milk (Feat. Mel)
4. Harvest Home – Mark Lanegan
5. The River – Son Little
6. Moaning Lisa Smile – Wolf Alice
7. You with Air – Young Magic
8. Ink Blot Test – Seth Sentry
9. Tongues – Joywave (Feat. Kopps)
10. Let It Burn – The Orwells
11. True to Hip-Hop [Remix] – AiM (Feat. AG)
12. Zombie – Jamie T
13. White Is Red – Death From Above 1979
14. Half-Lit – Single Mothers
15. Get Up – Young Fathers
16. Red Eyes – The War on Drugs
17. What You Isn’t – The Brian Jonestown Massacre
18. God Neon – The Silent Comedy
19. Queen – Perfume Genius
20. Flying Golem – Wand
21. Tall Man, Skinny Lady – Ty Segall
22. Digsaw – The Wytches
23. Time 4 Sum Aksion – Redman
24. Transgender Dysphoria Blues – Against Me!
Nemo 