Released at the beginning of the year, Another Glorious Exercise in Horror by Helliphant goes far beyond what one finds in your typical album. In addition to 13 tracks of infernal riffs and accursed sermons from the hard rock super-group, the CD also comes with an eight-page comic book available both in dead tree and digital format.
Written by Deacon Dr. Joe, the Helliphant vocalist who is also known as Joe Price, the comic features art by Mad Molloy, a Madison-based artist who has created illustrations for various bands as well as the Mad Rollin' Dolls. "Molloy put a lot of work into the project and the outcome far exceeded my expectations," says Price. "So I made an animated version of the comic -- with me narrating the story -- that can be viewed by playing the Another Glorious Exercise in Horror in a computer." This was the inspiration and primary source for a new music video from the band featuring their eight-minute epic "Open Your Mouth."
"I came up with the idea of cutting up the backgrounds and characters from that comic book and adding them as the backgrounds for this video, thus tying it in with the rest of the artistic direction of the album," says Price. "It made me laugh the whole time I was making it, so I figured that was the way to go."
A musician active for over a decade several Madison-based bands, including Plastic and Way Off the Horse, Price also formerly wrote reviews for Rick's Café and experiments with animation and web design on his own time. "I have been working on it for the past six months and it is, more or less, done," he says. This new music video follows.
