by Tom Alexander (@___alexd)
The German language has a word for everything, but I don’t think it has a word for that feeling you get in the early, early hours in the morning, when you’ve stayed up partying. Chances are, you know exactly what I mean here – it’s 4AM, and the drinks you started the night out with have mostly worn off. Your eyes burn a little, and the sun is starting to rise, but you still feel restless even though you’re exhausted. It’s in those wee hours that you start to feel the bones of everything made bare. Street sweepers come out, neon lights are turned off, and the early birds start chirping. If there’s not a word for this feeling in German, then let us call it “Good Scare”.
Horror Movie Marathon is the project of Will Rutledge, a Connecticut-turned-New York musician, and Good Scare is his debut album. It wouldn’t be fair or accurate to call Horror Movie Marathon a solo project, however, as Good Scare also features Alex Molini (Philary, Stove, Pile) and Will Ponturo on piano/keys and drums/percussion respectively. The line-up expands for live shows, turning into a six-piece, yet Rutledge remains in the spotlight as a soft-voiced crooner, spinning vivid, surreal lyrics with pop-friendly melodies. This songwriting style, a comforting embrace of the weird and spooky, is Good Scare’s defining characteristic. Horror Movie Marathon may dream up a lot of bizarre, strange images, and they are happy to share them, but they aren’t here to scare you.
A quick glance at Good Scare’s tracklist gives you an immediate idea; songs titled “Halloween Party,” “Jack O’lantern,” “Junk Food Paradise,” and “Costume Contest” (or even just the name of the band) let you know exactly what you are in for. It’s spooky, but not scary. It’s dark, but not harmful. When, for example, we hear about the skeleton of a 10-year old boy on “Jack O’lantern,” it’s as an amusing jab rather than a gruesome scene. The band’s willingness to play with the grotesque is right there in the album’s title: Good Scare. Horror Movie Marathon internalize that distinction in their music, as an indie rock band that owes as much to the lounge acts of Las Vegas as they do to the ‘90s alt-rock scene. In that regard, comparisons to Father John Misty are warranted: freak folk with a psychedelic swagger. The similarities, however, mostly end there, as Rutledge doesn’t seem at all interested in irony or the self-aware hedonism on which Misty built his name. The closest Horror Movie Marathon comes to that is on the self-effacing title track, where Rutledge wonders aloud: “I guess I’ve got to own my own bullshit / if I’m to make it out alive.”
And that brings us back to those early morning odysseys, those good scares. By the opening notes of “Las Vegas,” the album’s first track, the party is over. In fact, it’s been long over for quite some time. As the world takes on a slightly heavier gravity, Horror Movie Marathon slowly walk back to their hotel room. The previous night’s excesses now have a nostalgic quality, close enough that you can still taste it in your mouth, but distant enough that you now see those events in third person. Throughout Good Scare, we feel that distance. These ballads are often quiet and slow, but we know where they come from – times that were once fun but have now taken on a warmly eerie tone.