B-Side Guys

Horror works best when it straddles the line between disturbing and absurd, when it makes you unsure whether to laugh or recoil. Caleb L’Etoile’s PS, released October 15th, operates in exactly that territory—ten tracks of miniature horror movies wrapped in radioactive guitars and punk aggression. The Virginia-based artist, who earlier this year unleashed the politically charged American Death, pivots completely here into seasonal terror, creating what he calls a “horror anthology” where each song functions as individual vignette within a broken, blurry world. Written, recorded, and produced largely by himself in about four weeks, the album sounds perfectly imperfect, embracing the raw urgency that makes both Halloween and punk rock so appealing.

L’Etoile describes Halloween as his favorite holiday—the time when people “relax a little and let themselves lean into the stupidity of doing something for fun without the trappings of so much of the uptightness that society usually carries.” That philosophy permeates PS, which refuses polish in favor of immediate, visceral impact. The dense, haunted sound world pulls from influences like Daughters, Gilla Band, and the Armed, filtering their experimental noise-rock through L’Etoile’s own pop and indie sensibilities. The Misfits (Danzig era), The Cramps, and Harley Poe also haunt these grooves, creating a lineage that connects classic horror-punk to contemporary abrasion.

“Darling Pt. 2” opens the album as noir detective story that curdles into supernatural grief. The narrator searches desperately for his missing love, following leads through rain and fog, holding onto hope even as months pass. The devastating reveal—she’s been dead all along, now haunting his room as a ghost—transforms desperate romance into something stranger. His response captures the album’s particular blend of devotion and madness: he’s not scared of being haunted; he welcomes it until death. The track establishes L’Etoile’s narrative approach: straightforward storytelling that takes sharp left turns into the grotesque.

“Come Back Baby” pushes further into body horror, documenting an attempt to resurrect the dead that goes predictably, horribly wrong. The meticulous detail—hooking up wires, changing clothes, sewing stitches, applying makeup—makes the love behind the desecration somehow more disturbing. When the reanimation succeeds but produces a rage-filled creature that attacks her would-be savior, the horror emerges not from the act itself but from the sincere devotion that motivated it. L’Etoile writes with enough specificity to make the impossible feel visceral.

“Starling” shifts into claustrophobic domestic nightmare, capturing someone trying to maintain control through increasingly violent means. The repeated phrase “it puts the devil in me” becomes mantra justifying escalating cruelty, while the final admission—”i just wanted you to stay”—reveals the pathetic neediness underneath the monstrousness. The track demonstrates L’Etoile’s skill at inhabiting perspectives that horrify without passing explicit judgment, trusting listeners to recognize the awfulness.

“Heel. Sit.” transforms power dynamics into literal dehumanization, the narrator reduced to trained animal through commands and physical control. The track’s discomfort comes from its ambiguity—is this consensual kink taken too far, or pure abuse? The final shift where “my needs are changing, and my will is weak / i feel a new self taking, i let it take the lead” suggests transformation into something no longer human, identity dissolving under sustained domination.

“A Haunting” functions as the album’s emotional nadir, a multi-generational ghost story where the supernatural emerges from unbearable grief and trauma. The revelation that the mother’s ghost still hangs from the noose, that the narrator eventually discovers his children “face down in the water,” that the haunting stems from his own actions—L’Etoile constructs genuine Gothic horror here, the kind where ghosts represent guilt made manifest. The final decision to burn everything, including himself, offers no catharsis, just annihilation.

“When She Sings” returns to creature feature territory, following a woman convinced something watches her whenever she uses her voice. The paranoia escalates—boarding up the house, cutting off her own eyelids to stay vigilant, buying a gun—before the final sequence where she deliberately sings in the woods, summoning the crows that peck her to death. The track captures the exhaustion of sustained fear, the point where death becomes preferable to continued vigilance.

“Beach Horror” provides necessary tonal shift, leaning into camp with its tale of cursed fishing trip and dream-state transformation into a winged monster. The exclamation “Beach horror! The horror of the beach!” embraces the absurdity while maintaining genuine eeriness. L’Etoile understands that horror anthologies need variation, that relentless grimness eventually numbs rather than disturbs.

“ZBF” continues that lighter approach, documenting friendship with a zombie through specific, darkly comic details—she plays drums with her limbs, prefers drinking from heads, sings “Monster Mash” at karaoke. The affection here feels genuine despite the grotesquery, proving L’Etoile can write tenderness even in his most deranged scenarios.

“Same Thing” and “Stoat” close the album maintaining the established aesthetic while providing thematic closure. The former documents parasitic possession, the gradual loss of will as something external takes control. The latter sprawls across its runtime, exploring violence as inherited trait, the “poison” that “sprouted roots and grew inside.” The track’s aggressive self-mythology—refusing to die for god or master, laying waste to human filth—channels punk’s apocalyptic energy into personal manifesto.

Throughout PS, the Gamechanger Audio Motor Pedal provides sonic consistency, creating the radioactive guitar tones L’Etoile describes. The production embraces imperfection, vocals sometimes buried in the mix, guitars deliberately harsh and abrasive. That roughness serves the material—these horror vignettes benefit from feeling urgent and unfinished, like nightmares captured before they fully cohere.

PS delivers exactly what L’Etoile promised—a horror anthology that refuses to choose between camp and genuine dread, embracing both with equal commitment. The pivot from American Death‘s political fury to seasonal terror demonstrates range without abandoning intensity. The forty minutes reward full album listening while individual tracks function as standalone miniatures. For an artist who wrote, recorded, and produced this in about four weeks, the achievement is remarkable—not despite the speed but because of it, capturing inspiration before second-guessing could dilute the vision. Dark, dumb, chaotic, mysterious, and pretty punk rock—exactly what Halloween music should be.