The Mothra Slapping Orchestra are from La Réunion Island, Madascar. The band’s Bandcamp page describes them as a ‘good old 3 pieces band with a double bass. Punk-rock & garage fans playing rockabilly with psycho bite’, and this seems like a pretty accurate description.

Catch Your Monster … Final Round is the band’s third album and a damn fine one it is too.

‘Cycotic Clown’, begins very slowly and in quite a bluesy fashion and then the vocals come in and one can feel the menace immediately, ‘let me burn, let me slash let me kill, before the rage takes over and he is yelling I’m a cycotic clown, I’ll put a gun in your mouth. The song oscillates between these two poles of the bluesy to the cycotic and as such ticks the box for psychobilly in forceful terms.

‘Fur Elvis’ begins with a very clean guitar tone playing a riff that is joined by double bass. The singer sounds a bit like Alice Cooper. ‘Did Brian show me the way to Rockabilly, did Joey Show me the way to punk, rock and roll is not so easy’, there we have the fusion of rockabilly and punk, another box ticked on the ‘Is it Psycho?’ check list. Incidentally the song has a nice riff and plenty of psychobilly-esque stops and starts.

‘Gimme A Pill Doctor’ begins with sound of a patient heavy breathing. There is then another nice riff and then in come the vocals, which are rather good. In fact the whole song is well constructed and is my favourite on the album so far.

‘I Wanna Die’ begins with mandolin and voice before jangly chords take over, and this is really a very summery feeling song, think the House Martins ‘Happy Hour’ but with slightly crazed vocals and you are at least part way there.  And so concludes side 1 of some jolly fine Psychobilly.

‘Ich Liebe Dich’ features a strong double bass and jangly guitar punctuated by a few blasts of the Farfizer organ. With German vocals there is an element of Rammstein, but in truth only a little bit as the voice remains quite deranged.

‘Monster in Town’ begins with a very simple, but effective riff. Over the top of this are the wonderful vocals of this deranged psychobilly and then all of a sudden the song is over almost as soon as it began.

‘Revolution’ has a slightly harder edge to it with strummed chords and thumping slap bass. There is a sort of breakdown section where the drummer gets busy on the toms and we hear for the first time that I’m aware of, a china cymbal in psychobilly – It’s a good song.

‘Slowdown’ begins with mandolin and vocals before guitar and slap bass and vocals enter the fray. I think this is the singer’s finest vocal performance the guitar is also at its best I think. The song has a rather nice outro section played on the mandolin again with the double bass and vocals doing as the song suggests and slowing down until it stops. This is fine, psychobilly from one of the least likely avenues in the world. It is strikingly original and markedly different from the majority of eurobilly. There is much to commend the Mothra Slappin’ Orchestra about and were I in the game of handing out gold stars, this would certainly get one.

Reviewed by Nick Kemp

Buy your copy here:

https://mothraslappingorchestra1.bandcamp.com/album/catch-your-monster-final-round