Voltaire: Spooky Songs For Creepy Kids (best of-ish)

With his devilish goatee, turn of the century garb and rakish looks, one might assume Voltaire sings murder ballads on the Bowery – and to a fair degree you would be right. However, those people who don’t wear black on a daily basis know Voltaire as the Evil Meteor creature on Cartoon Network’s “The Grim Adventures of Billy And Mandy.” If you’ve ever seen the episode where this tentacled, extraterrestrial rock tries to convince Billy to bring him the townsfolk so he can eat their “BRAINS!” then you’ve already heard one of Voltaire’s songs. Voltaire also sings “Land of the Dead,” the title track of the Billy and Mandy one-hour film, “Big Boogie Adventure.”

No stranger to animation, Voltaire is also a recurring character in the popular on-line game, AdventureQuest Worlds. Every Friday the 13th, Voltaire leads players (a server-crashing average of 35,000 at a time) on a live adventure in which he sings his songs with lyrics changed to match the monster-infested battles in the game.

Voltaire says, “I have fans who now have kids and they tell me that their kids love my songs, but they have to skip over the ones that are not appropriate for the wee ones. Also, through my work with Cartoon Network and AdventureQuest I have a growing horde of 12 year-old fans, so I really felt it was time to make a record that was right for them.”

Finally, all of Voltaire’s age-appropriate songs are on one CD. On this disc Voltaire compiles his songs from Cartoon Network as well as five of his songs from the AdventureQuest game.

Sure to please fans and non-fans of Twilight alike is a never-before-heard version of his popular song, “The Vampire Club,” where Voltaire simultaneously embraces and skewers Twilight in a way only he can! Also included on this disc is a spooky lullaby Voltaire wrote for his son, “Goodnight Demonslayer,” which brings to mind British bandleader Henry Hall’s “Here Comes the Boogie Man” (made popular again by the video game BioShock2). “The Beast of Pirate’s Bay” is a song Voltaire wrote to perform at his son’s school Halloween fair. Rounding out the track listing is “Crusade,” a bit of fatherly advice where knights and dragons serve as a metaphor for the acceptance of diversity and other ideologies.

At the title states, this is not just a collection of songs for kids, it’s a CD for “creepy kids.” It is recommended for tweens/ages 12 and up. It contains fantasy violence, many references to monsters and liberal use of the word “hell.”