The darkness within.
Creative Staff:
Story: Paul Cornell
Art: Tony Parker
What They Say:
Relationships crumbling, groupies gone missing, owing money to drug dealers, meeting the devil himself—you might say the band Motherfather has problems. So what’s the perfect place to record their latest album? A haunted house, of course! More hellish high jinks from Paul Cornell (Wolverine, Action Comics) and Tony Parker (Mass Effect: Foundation)!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
This Damned Band has certainly played well in its opening installments with what it wants to do in presenting a situation with a supernatural bent to it. A lot of what we’ve gotten are things that the band members are easily writing off as some serious drug hallucinations and you can mostly go with it, especially since some of it was pretty surreal. That uncertainty about it though is what makes it fun to read because you’re waiting either to be validated in that belief or waiting for things to go south in a hard and bad way for the band and those around them. But even as things do start to take some bad turns you can’t be entirely sure simply because there are so many surreal moments to it when you get down to it and sometimes reality is stranger than fiction.
With this installment, the group is back in France after their strange journey to the Budokan and while they’ towards their next leg of the tour they’re also getting in some recording time. But it’s not an easy event in the house that they’ve set up shop in out in the countryside because Clive is simply not happy with anything and is taking it out on everyone. What makes this more interesting is that as we see the camera crew getting material from the band’s producer and sound mixer we see that there’s some tension coming up here. A question as to whether Clive is trying to take over as the producer for everything and push out the man who has gotten them to where they are after all this time. There’s a generational aspect to it since Clive is so much younger and you can see him believing he’s the one to truly drive things forward for the band as they move deeper into the 70’s.
We also get some dynamics breaking down within the larger family that is the band, notably with Alice feeling very much on the outs here as Kev has apparently written a song about how he’s being held back from his dreams. While things have seemed groovy between them previously, having this play out in this large, sprawling and mansion-like French house gives it a decadent kind of feeling as well as a larger sense of tragedy about it. Alice has certainly been sympathetic to some degree so far as she’s staying true amid all the weirdness of a man like Kev and a band like this, but there are bridges too far for some and this may be it. Seeing how others reacts to it and interact with them adds a little more color to it, but the sequence between Alice and Kev when she talks to him about is is almost painful to watch, especially with the layouts and meager dialogue.
Of course, there has to be the darker edge to things here as well on the supernatural side and a lot of that plays out through the eyes of the long-suffering cameramen that are trying to blend into the background. They’re capturing some good footage of the group in general, but this place and its dark secrets are causing some of the members to react badly. This interaction with the viewer is definitely fun as it unfolds, especially the stairs sequence as Parker really nails the design of it with how we see it and the kind of panic coming out from it all. The use of shadows later in the basement area is also really strong since it adds to the uncertainty at first. A location like this has its own mystique and while the characters do talk of it being haunted, Parker brings that air of mystery to life beautifully here.
In Summary:
I’ll admit that I’m still not sure what’s real and what’s not in this series but I’m loving the trippy atmosphere of it, the surreal nature of what the group may or may not have experienced, and the general group dynamic. These are almost always strangely dysfunctional co-dependent families that get built around bands of this nature and time and watching how it plays out with a kind of give and take and tug of war between the various members is fascinating. It takes some darker turns for some of the cast here along the way, and some deadly turns, but it also goes in a completely unexpected direction at the end that has me befuddled as to what’s to come next. But I know I want more of this ride.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 7th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
