Lake of Dracula's career was an explosive blip, mirroring the fast-burning stints of the 70s No Wave bands its guitarist Weasel Walter fervently championed. The group burst forth in Chicago in 1995 and slammed to a halt less than two years later, leaving a single album and a handful of shows in their scorched wake. They were too late (and sounded a bit too bright and robust) for No Wave, but their noisy punk shook with the devouring spirit of that genre's pioneers (Mars, DNA, Teenage Jesus). In fact, Lake of Dracula's tightly wound songs were so vibrant that this posthumous release, a live set that essentially reproduces the self-titled studio debut, still sounds vital 10 years later.
It helps that Lake of Dracula had a stellar pedigree. Alongside Walter, founder and drummer of jazz-punk vets the Flying Luttenbachers, the group included former Couch singer Marlon Magas, drummer Heather M. from the Scissor Girls, and occasionally "the Manhattanite," a pseudonym for U.S. Maple's Al Johnson. The music on Skeletal Remains is accordingly authoritative, yet refreshingly unjaded. Each track shakes with the wiry energy of the band's well-hewn skills and driving inspirations.
Much of that hectic vigor comes from Walter and Magas, whose head-to-head sprints form the core of Skeletal Remains' vein-busting pulse. The pair race each other endlessly, jostling back and forth for sonic position. Walter's bassy chords enflame the group's pounding rhythms, often blurring into noise but always sharp as a knife. Sprayed on top is Magas's distended voice, which evokes Mark E. Smith's arrhythmic rants, Johnny Rotten's gobbed bleats, and the off-key drool of Darby Crash, who Magas smartly namechecks in the first song, "Four Teachers" (the only one not taken from the band's debut). When delivered in Magas's skewed cadence, Ed Wood-worthy couplets like "Plague of frogs/ hopping in the night" and "Dracula killed Frankenstein / and then he tried to blow my mind" become urgent, skin-crawling pleas.
There are so many highlights here-- the Erase Errata-foreshadowing "Plague of Frogs", Walter's two-note quack on "Violators", Magas's stretched groans on "Memories of Me"-- that Skeletal Remains is ultimately one long, searing beam of throbbing post-punk. The group was smart enough not to mess much with the well-paced sequencing of their album; halfway through the set, Walter calls out "Side 2!" and his mates recreate it dutifully. Yet Skeletal Remains is no rehash. Aside from the fact that three tracks from singles and comps are appended, the band's performance adds vivid colors to pieces first heard on the debut. Such improvement suggests an even more spectacular takeoff might have been in store; let's just be thankful that we got to witness stage one.
