Joan Rittberg
Arts & Culture Editor
Kim Petras, a German pop star and an LGBTQ+ modern music icon is back with her funhouse of infectious Halloween pop infused tracks. This newest set of nine songs is a sequel to last year’s “Turn off the Light,” which featured infectious hits such as “Tell me It’s A Nightmare” and “Close Your Eyes.” Both songs are present in this set as well. Not all sequels manage to capture the magic of the original, but in blazing glory. Petras in these new songs capture the infectious mania of Halloween in a gloriously ghoulish collection of scarily good pop tracks.
The album opens with a spooky instrumental track titled “Purgatory” that while beginning with an eerie chorus, quickly transitions into a club type of rhythm. The track perfectly sets up Petras contrast on her album between genuine Halloween scares and a pop techno twist. Her albums are always an experience that is meant to be experienced in order as she pushes out one catchy song after another. Her first big song is “There Will Be Blood,”it has been known to just be a dark pop anthem about death, and although grim, the synth beat and exciting chorus make it a really enjoyable track.
The next two tracks, “Bloody Valentine” and “Wrong Turn” are infectious pop anthems with a grim twist. “Wrong Turn” is one of the highlights as the pulsing beat throughout give the feel of a 1980s campy horror film. One thing this album does particularly well is creating a haunting mood and atmosphere. In one track, “Demons” she even adds some dialogue about how demons exist in the spirit form. Although the track later goes into a more instrumental beat, these shorter tracks break up the bigger pop anthems and give a flow to these nine tracks.
Although all her songs are very catchy, it is on the sixth track, “Massacre” where Petras reaches her brilliance. Very slyly, Petras takes the iconic melody of “Carol of the Bells” and adds a Halloween twist to it with eerie instrumentals and dark lyrics about “men in gore” and “death.” This repurposing of a Christmas classic into an especially spooky spectacular is a work of absolute brilliance. Looking deeper, the track also speaks to the LGBTQ+’s community of repurposing something familiar and adding a personal spin. In spookifying a Holiday melody, Petras establishes herself as a queen of the pop genre.
Her last song, “Everybody Dies” closes the album on an unexpectedly more resonant note. In this song, Petras is saying how after all the tears and hardships we go through in life, we all face death in the end. While initially a grim subject for a final pop anthem, Petras takes a refreshingly positive take on the subject of death by ultimately leaving listeners with a message of living life to the fullest and embracing those we love while they are still around.
While full of the deliciously spooky pop songs that fans expect from her, tracks such as the genre bending, “Massacre” and the thoughtful, “Everybody Dies,” show a new Petras who is growing and deepening over time. Her songs continue to be a hallmark for those in the LGBTQ+ community looking for a good time, but it is the messages of embracing those in your life in this album that makes this group of songs a particularly sweet Halloween treat.
