New Halloweenish item

Alright, you Halloweeners! (We know who we are.) If you happen to be a fan of creepy music, "Nightmare Revisited" may suit your fancy. If you're a fan of Tim Burton, and "The Nightmare Before Christmas," you'll get quite a kick out of this. If you're a fan of Danny Elfman's film scores, you'll quite likely enjoy this.

Here's the deal. It's the entire soundtrack to TNBC done as covers by other artists. I don;t usually like cover albums, but this is just fun. Most of these folks I don't know, but DeVotchka's punk/klezmer take on the Overture is wonderful to hear, as is Marylin Manson's eerie rendition of "This is Halloween." The Yoshida Bros' acoustic guitar/electronica version of "Nabbed" is quite nice. So is Korn's remarkably creepy "Kidnap the Sandy Claws." One more stands out to me: Flyleaf's minor-key, slightly out of sync cover of "What's This?" jut really fits the mood of the film.

There are a couple downers here, in my snooty opinion. The Polyphonic Spree covers the "Town Meeting Song"--and I do mean "covers"! Elfman's charming tune and meter are completely lost in something that seems to belong to a 70s rock opera. On the other hand, if you're a fan of the Spree, this may really trip your trigger. It is suitably creepy fun, though. The other real disappointment (again, for me) is "Oogie Boogie's Song." Performed by Rodrigo y Gabriela, it's decent musically, but they're the only ones who did a cover on this disc and left out the words! Actually, they do bring in one line: "Sally: What are you going to do? Boogie: I'm gonna do the best I can."

Additionally, the two narrated pieces, appropriately named "Opening" ("Twas a long time ago, longer now than it seems, in a place that perhaps you've seen in your dreams...") and "Closing" (in which the narrator asks Jack if he'd do it over again) are re-worked and narrated by Elfman himself.

Other artists appearing: The All-American Rejects, Amiina, The Vitamin String Quartet, Sparklehorse, Rise Against, Amy Lee, Rjd2, Plain White T's, Datarock, Shiny Toy Guns, The Album Leaf.

Definitely worth the purchase price, this'll be one of many soundtracks for my October--and afterwards.