I’m a sucker for a good concept album. I know it’s the writer/nerd in me, but anytime you can present a story in a new way, I’m in. Some concept albums can border on being a musical. While I’m very hit or miss with musicals, it’s a genre that is still being reinvented, as tastes have blended and evolved throughout the years. Whether it’s taking an album like Green Day’s American Idiot and putting music to script or fully writing a punk rock musical like Fat Mike’s Home Street Home, punk rock has rubbed elbows with musicals a few times. This is why Mass Charade Masquerade’s Welcome to the Asylum Ball isn’t too out of its lane.
From what I can gather from the lyrics, the story seems to be about an asylum where an evil doctor is experimenting on its patients. It’s told from the perspective of one of the inmates navigating the hell scape of his own mind and the evil doctor’s experiments. After the inmate is seemingly killed and his body is discarded, he wakes up in a hole ready for revenge.
Welcome to the Asylum Ball opens with a Ramonesque song, presenting this story to the audience and setting the scene. I say Ramonesque rather than Ramonescore because this song feels closer to “Pet Sematary” than, say, “Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment.” After a couple of songs (“Straitjacket” and “DEADXALIVE”) from the POV of our protagonist, we switch over to our villain momentarily with “The Doctor.” After the protagonist wakes up in a hole and is left for dead, the rest of the songs on the album move the revenge narrative forward.
Some songs incorporate sound effects, which are inserted well. Clinking chains work in time with the beat of the song and give these tracks more atmosphere than just what’s in the mind of the protagonist. The music is well-written and has the hallmarks of the genre. It doesn’t break any molds, but its ambition does, which I appreciate much more. If you’re a fan of darker or more philosophical 1990s punk rock, a lot of these songs will resonate with you.
While I’ve written plenty of stories and tried to write songs, I’ve never been able to spin the plates simultaneously to do both. Mass Charade Masquerade can sustain a coherent story throughout the album’s eleven tracks, and an enjoyable one at that. One aspect I liked about the lead guitar is that in some parts it takes on a Phantom of the Opera-like organ to give it another layer of eeriness and crossover with a genre not typically mixed with punk rock.
Mass Charade Masquerade’s Welcome to the Asylum Ball isn’t for everyone, but it is definitely worth a listen. It’s a risk that mostly pays off and sounds pretty good while doing so. Big swings like this move any genre forward, which is never a bad thing. If you are a fan of musicals or concept albums, check this out.