An Even Scarier Solstice is the follow up to A Very Scary Solistice, a parody holiday album featuring songs inspired by equal parts Christmas carols and H.P. Lovecraft.
Created by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, An Even Scarier Solstice features songs such as “Mountains of Madness”, which is a merry little recounting of a doomed Antarctic expedition set to the tune of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” and “All I Want For Solstice Is My Sanity”, in which a madman laments for his lost mental facilities rather than the more traditional two front teeth.
Just as with its predecessor, some may find its songs blasphemous, but it’s a mild, tongue-in-cheek blasphemy that’s far more worried about coming up with amusing cyclopian twists on traditional carols than it is poking fun at organized religion.
For example, we’ve got “Death to the World” which is set to “Joy to the World” which celebrates the release of the Great Old Ones from R’leyh. “Slay Ride” is a light-hearted, upbeat take on “Sleigh Ride”, only this diddy is about Herbert West, Re-animator. “Harley Got Devoured By the Undead” is a parody of a parody, riffing off of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” to tell the tale of two men confronting the zombies infesting a wizard’s tome. (“You can say there’s no such things as zombies, but that is how Harley Warren met his doom.”)
The quality of the songs matches that of your average holiday CD and it’s better than what you might expect from a community-produced album. I prefer A Very Scary Solstice and its songs like “Little Book Room” and “Freddy the Red-Brained Mi-Go” but that may be simply because I’ve had it longer. Both see heavy rotation in iTunes during the holiday season and have become staples of our annual December Arkham Horror games.
If you love the Cthulhu Mythos and are looking to mix in a little horror to your standard Christmas mix, An Even Scarier Solstice is worth picking up.
Product Information
- An Even Scarier Solstice
- by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society
- 21 songs, 55:41 duration
- MSRP: $20
- Buy the album