Beyond the Graves of Passion

Beyond the Graves of Passion
Studio album by Theatre of Ice
Released	1983
Studio	Demented Mind Mill and "various other locations" between January 4th and May 13th, 1984.
Genre	Deathrock
Label	Demented Mind Mill Records
Producer	Brent G. Johnson
Theatre of Ice chronology

Last updated March 14, 2019

Beyond the Graves of Passion is the second album recorded by the Deathrock/Gothic rock band Theatre of Ice. It was recorded in 1982 and 1983 in an actual haunted house, and released on Demented Mind Mill Records in 1983. The album had the effect of polarizing their audience into two camps; those that considered them to be basically a kitschy novelty act and those that thought they were prophets from the underworld and began following the band from show to show. Ultimately the album failed to gain much attention outside of their cult following. Several bizarre altercations between the band and their devotees led to the band formally disbanding in 1983. One of the most famous altercations led to the band being abducted by a group of crazed fans who believed the band could aid them in summoning demons. ^{[ citation needed ]}

Deathrock is a rock music subgenre incorporating horror elements and gothic theatrics. It emerged from punk rock on the West Coast of the United States in the early 1980s and overlaps with the gothic rock and horror punk genres. Notable deathrock acts include Christian Death, Kommunity FK, 45 Grave, and Super Heroines.

Gothic rock is a style of rock music that emerged from post-punk in the late 1970s. The first post-punk bands which shifted towards dark music with gothic overtones include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Bauhaus, and the Cure.

Theatre of Ice were an early deathrock band that formed in the Nevada desert in December 1978. Initially formed to record a soundtrack for a horror movie, the members instead evolved into what some claim was the first deathrock band. Owing more initially to experimental groups such as Throbbing Gristle, Suicide and Chrome, the band also cited bands as diverse as Iron Butterfly, Blue Öyster Cult, The Moody Blues and Roxy Music as major influences. Theatre of Ice brought a modern approach to gothic-horror themes by tackling the idea of an underground spook show in the contemporary world.

Musicians

Brent Johnson - Vocals, Guitars
John Johnson - Vocals, Guitar, Synthesizer
Mark Johnson - Vocals, Drums
John Baradet - Percussion
Eric Johnson - Bass Guitar
Shareen Sorensen - Violin, Keyboards

Track listing

"Red Asphalt"
"Fox"
"Steps Toward Sanity"
"The Creature"
"It's All For Fun"
"The Hour Has Come"
"The Classics"
"Going Nowhere"
"Termination"
"But To Love You"
"In Our Haunted World"
"The Apparition"
"Miron"
"It Doesn't Matter"
"Bizarre Thoughts"
"Funeral Games"
"It's Time For You"
"Moon Dance Daze"
"Chill Factor"
"A Haunting Melody"
"From the Tomb"

Reviews

OPtion Magazine , Los Angeles - Horror rock recorded in a haunted house somewhere in the Nevada Desert. 21 songs which bubble around with no pauses; voices, guitars, drums and things, violin (essential in ghost music), and keyboards. Cover is a skull with a skeleton hand holding a pistol to the earplace, from a deserted Nevada ghost town. -- Robin James.^[1]
Untune the Sky, Las Vegas, Nevada - This album is chock full of scary stuff! These brothers from the desolate and incredibly boring Fallon, Nevada have produced some pretty demented and diverse music using whatever instruments and line-up that sounded best at the time. They seem driven by an environment that includes a dead animal disposal site, haunted cemeteries, child molesters and serial killers. This album has "festered" on me. I first dismissed it as pseudo intellectual pud-whacking–I now embrace it as one of the best albums of the decade.
Artitude Magazine, New York City - Recorded in a haunted house located somewhere in the Nevada desert, these songs are both trashy and serious. Concerned mostly with the topics of death and fear in a somewhat overstated manner, this is saved by its sense of humor and by its relative sincerity. The humor comes in the way that the main themes are repeated in each song - hence the sincerity, in the group's single-mindedness. The music itself is somewhat-trashy, grating rock, sometimes sounding strangely normal and sometimes a bit more unconventional.
Cause and Effect, Indianapolis, Indiana - The newest release by Theatre of Ice further refines their doom-gloom horror-rock sound. More songs about corpses, graveyards, zombies, blood, teen suicide and dead things. 21 new horror rock classics. Scream your head off. Theatre of Ice is the winner of the 1983 Most Obnoxious Band of the Year Award.
Unsound Magazine, San Francisco, California - One song intersects with the next in this never ending tragedy on ice. 21 songs comprise this haunting album. I think a lot is missed because of the recording quality, although it adds to the macabre nature.^[2]
Wild Planet, Nebraska - B-movie gloom and doom splatter rock! Unlike a lot of groups in this genre, Theatre of Ice don't sound derivative, and their sound is varied, ranging from bleak industrial soundscapes to moody post punk. Sure, there are obvious influences, Siouxsie, Chrome, Suicide, Throbbing Gristle, Velvet Underground and others. But Theatre of Ice takes these influences and distle them into their own distinctive sound. Beyond the Graves of Passion is simultaneously the scarier and the more accessible of their two albums, the sound has been refined and even includes some haunting (sorry) melodies, even some spacey synth pieces. A must for fans of the macabre!
SPAMM, Sacramento, California - This album is much more evolved than The Haunting . It seems as though Theatre of Ice now not only know what they want to do, but they can also transform those ideas into music. Music that hints of industrial throb, maniac hardcore, rough edged pop, and just plain weird shit. Once again, as with their prior release, you have to be kinda warped to truly appreciate such assaults to the mind. Great!
Factsheet Five, Massachusetts - Imagine 4 brothers in Nevada. The Johnson boys are into horror and music. They think fear is God's gift to mankind. So what do they do? They start a band and make some of the scariest music ever. Whether you call this, industrial or horror rock, the point is that these guys do it well, and are more accessible to the average listener than most industrial music. Their albums could be the soundtracks to your worst nightmares, but they're not oppressive–there are lots of lyrics to pick out and lots of short and medium length songs so the albums never get boring. "It only took a second to cut of her head/I watched it as her golden hair turned to red".

Option was a music magazine based in Los Angeles, California. It covered independent, underground and alternative music and multiple musical genres for an international subscription base. Its print run began in 1985 and ended in 1998.

Fallon is a city in Churchill County, Nevada, United States. The population was 8,606 at time of the 2010 census. Fallon is the county seat of Churchill County and is located in the Lahontan Valley.

The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States and thus also in the state of New York. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km²), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.

Notes

↑ "Reviews". (May/June 1985, Issue B). OPtion , p.13
↑ "Reviews". (January 1985, Vol. 2, No. 1). Unsound, p.56

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[1] "Reviews". (May/June 1985, Issue B). OPtion , p.13

[2] "Reviews". (January 1985, Vol. 2, No. 1). Unsound, p.56