Track By Tracks: Black Phantom - Horror Paradise (2024)

1. SAMMY THE ELF:

The opening track is a remake of the original song that we gave to the soundtrack of the movie 'HE KNOWS' by Morris Better Pictures, back in 2021 (which video can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vXL2JLvjHE ). Compared to the original one, this version has been re-sung, enriched with new guitar tracks, re-mixed and re-mastered. The song has been written specifically for the movie, and we took inspiration from its script to write the lyrics: they are about the main character of the movie itself, which is a serial killer nicknamed Sammy the Elf. Its fictional story tells that he's the rejected child of Santa Claus and his wife, and his mission is to punish at Christmas the ones who have been naughty. That's a straight-forward kind of song, and we thought it would fit great at the start of the album.

2. COME HIKE WITH ME:

The lyrics are about Jason Vorhees and Friday The 13th movies: it's the story of a couple of youngsters hiking in the woods who of course end up getting brutally killed. This track has been written for a collaboration with Womp Stomp Films, an American independent movie company, that specializes in Friday The 13th original movies: since its franchise is now totally free, many movie companies are doing films about it, but Womp Stomp is undoubtedly the best. They have just released their latest movie 'NEVER HIKE ALONE 2', so we are looking forward to their next endeavors to cooperate with them. Fun fact about the song: the middle section includes a spoken part with some of the most famous lines of the movie.

3. WAR OF TANKS:

I'm personally very interested in everything about WWII, and during the pandemic, I had the chance to see many movies and read many books and graphic novels on this subject. This song is about the tank battles which happened in France shortly after the D-Day invasion in Normandy. The interesting fact is that many of the British tank crews were young and untested, riding vehicles that were incredibly inferior to the German ones. Under these conditions, every battle was a ruthless game of survival. We tried to re-create the doomy and martial atmosphere of that situation, not just in the SFX intro, but also in the music itself. This track, together with 'J for Jenny', the last one of the album, has been optioned to be featured in a forthcoming war movie. Let's cross our fingers!

4. THE HEADSMAN:

This is the only track on the album that doesn't have anything to do with movies. I had this idea in mind for a long time: talking about the character of an executioner in the middle ages. Most probably, guys that worked as headsmen in those times were just doing that job, as any other: I wanted to talk about someone who actually enjoyed cutting heads, instead! We decided to have this song as the first single for the album, as it's catchy and heavy as hell!

5. A NIGHTMARE:

A very atmospheric track, with a bass arpeggio as an introduction, which is something that I have never done previously. We wanted to have a slow and doomy feel, in this song, but changing completely in the middle section, getting fast and furious in order to catch the listeners by surprise. We wrote this track for a future project with an American independent movie company based in Pennsylvania the lyrics are about a person who feels hunted by somebody, and cannot escape, just like in a bad dream.

6. I GOT THE CALLBACK:

The track was originally given as the main theme for the soundtrack of a movie called 'CALLBACK', which unfortunately will not be done anymore, as far as I know, as the production team had issues and the project has been put on hold indefinitely. The lyrics are inspired straight from the script of the movie itself and are about an actress who gets madly jealous of a colleague, and kidnaps and segregates her in order to steal her roles in movies. Even if the related movie is not likely to be ever filmed, we decided to keep the track as it is, because the lyrics are quite good just the same! The song itself is a fast-paced, galloping one, with an interesting mid-tempo break in the middle, where guitar solos take the spotlight.

7. LISTEN TO THE VOICE:

This song has been written for another American horror movie, called 'HILLSBOROUGH ROAD', which was filmed last year and currently is being edited for a forthcoming release. For this track we specifically wanted to have an 80's feeling, thinking about the mood of the hard rock/heavy metal tunes that appeared in horror soundtracks in those times. As usual, there's a lot of space for guitars in the middle part of the song itself.

Also for this track, the version appearing on the album is kind of different compared to the one given to the movie soundtrack: we re-recorded and re-sung it, adding some special effects on the voice, plus an additional guitar solo. We're very satisfied with how the track has become now!

8. BEAST ON THE LOOSE:

The American slasher movie 'NIGHT OF THE AXE' by Facemelt Features got this as an exclusive unreleased song in its soundtrack when it was released two years ago. The Beast is the name of the main character, a serial killer who breaks in at a party of youngsters and - guess what - he butchers them all! This has been a fun track to write because it matches the real doomy feel of the intro and the outro with a straightforward, fast, and catchy song. We plan to release a video clip of this song, mixing footage of ourselves with scenes from the movie itself. Expect it to be released later, this summer.

9. THE ARMOUR OF GOD:

Another song for a project that unfortunately we didn't succeed in participating in, in the end. This song was meant to be the main theme of a supernatural-thriller TV series called 'ST. GABRIEL', which was about a city run by crime, the occult and the demonic. Unluckily, the delivery of the recorded song couldn't match the production timing of the TV series, so we had to give up on this collaboration. We kept the song and used it anyway in the Horror Paradise album, as it works just fine even as a stand-alone track. The lyrics come straight from the Bible, specifically from the Epistle to the Ephesians by Paul, the tenth book of the New Testament. I'm actually not a frequent Bible reader, but I have to admit that on it you can really find some great inspiration for heavy metal tracks!

10. J FOR JENNY:

This is my favorite song of the album, for many reasons: first of all the music, as we worked a lot on the arrangements, adding many layers to the song itself, making it kind of different compared to the rest of our production... then, the vocal performance, as I think that Manuel has really overcome himself, acting a part more than just singing. I took inspiration for this song from the awesome War Stories graphic novel of the same name, written by Garth Ennis. It's about the British firebombing raids of late 1943 over Germany, hitting its major cities and razing them all to the ground. The strongest part of the story is not the bombing itself, of course, but the different feelings of the plane crews, as some of them may be fired up by vengeance, while some of them couldn't stand killing thousands of innocents. The lyrics explore these two opposite points of view, as two sides of the same coin: a real dramatic situation, that I think we have succeeded in depicting in this track.