Single Slam – Bad Donut by Bill and Phil (Songs of Darkness and Despair)

An icon of heavy metal and an icon of horror have teamed up for a music project. The project is called Bill and Phil and the icons are Phil Anselmo (Pantera, Down, Superjoint) and actor Bill Moseley (House of 1000 Corpses, Devil’s Rejects, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2). They are due to release an album/EP entitled Songs of Darkness and Despair on the 20th of January through Phil’s own record label, Housecore Records. Vocals are being covered by both Phil and Bill while the rest of the band are made up of Superjoint drummer and guitarist, Jose Gonzalez and Kevin Bond while  bass duties are covered by Squizzy Squires from King Parrot. It isn’t Bill Moseley’s first foray into the world of music either. He was the lead singer on a band project called Cornbugs between 1999 and 2007 which also featured famed guitarist Buckethead and released an album, as a band called Spider Mountain with Rani Sharone, called No Way Down. He also features in the music video to American horrorcore duo Twiztid’s song F.T.S from their album The Darkness.

The first taste of music from the project is the song Bad Donut which premiered on Livewire.

This song, Bad Donut, is definitely odd. It is short, at 2 minutes and 19 seconds long and appears to tell the chilling tale of, well, a donut (or doughnut). Phil actually doesn’t sing on this song at all and instead it is all spoken word from Bill Moseley. It works fine though – he has a listenable voice. It doesn’t really make an awful lot of sense lyrically with lines like “Can’t you keep your hand’s to yourself, can’t you teach your kids to whistle, can’t you leave my planet alone”. Maybe it is just me, I don’t get it. Perhaps the donut represents something else but whatever it is, it bypassed me completely. The music is a low toned, bassy line that is played throughout over a simple drum rhythm. The guitars play the same line but add moments of echo and distortion in at points. The music appears to be very simplistic and is there to quietly allow Bill Moseley’s spoken word to be highlighted and not to overtake it at any point.

I am quite surprised to find that I actually quite like it. It is unique, slightly unhinged, but very interesting and very listenable. It is hardly going to go down as a great slab of heavy metal but I doubt it was ever meant to.

Anselmo has stated – “All the songs have a different vibe because I wanted the music to represent Bill’s lyrical vision, and we needed to, because Bill does indeed have a unique, visual element within his choice of words and phrasing. I love Bill Moseley and can’t wait to work on the next one”.

Bad Donut is more than a little wacky but in a good way that makes it appear creative and interesting rather than confused an unnecessary. I will be interested in hearing how the rest of the album turns out now having heard this first taster. I hope Phil does actually sing on some of the songs though and while I am pretty sure this isn’t going to make any top lists at the end of the year, it may just be that little bit of something different we need from time to time.

Check the song out for yourself, here and if you like what you hear, you can preorder it from Housecore Records.