Dead Man's Bones — Dead Man's Bones

Dead Man's Bones

Anti/Epitaph

Aaron Brophy (CHARTattack)

10/07/2009 1:41pm

About the last thing you'd ever expect from a former Mickey Mouse Club member and award-winning actor would be a credible goth folk musical experiment about ghosts and monsters, but that's just what Ryan Gosling and musical partner Zach Shields have done.

The pair apparently channeled "their mutual obsession with the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland" to create the music on Dead Man's Bones and it shows in all its creepy soul-stealing glory.

Enlisting the Silverlake Conservatory Childrens Choir to provide substantial vocal help was a masterstroke. When the kids belt away the spelled out z-o-m-b-i-e cheer at the end of "My Body's A Zombie For You" it clearly — and fascinatingly — reveals that truly twisted minds were behind this.

Sure, the music can be a little rudimentary and the subject matter perhaps over-the-top, but in the age of True Blood and sparkly vampires somebody's got to capture the existential angst of werewolves in songform.

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