Pitch Black Manor Returns With New Record After 25 Years
You’ve heard of Christmas in July? Well, the Quad-Cities’ first goth rock band has reunited to celebrate Halloween in July.
Joshua Bentley, 46, of East Moline, played his first show in the Quad-Cities 29 years ago Tuesday — July 21, 1991 at Uncle Roscoe’s Polo Club in Davenport, with his band Pitch Black Manor (which formed in 1990).
Bentley has fronted other Q-C bands, Savage Gentlemen, Human Aftertaste and Hot Candy Idols (national touring with Human Aftertaste in 2007) and has come full circle back to where it all started.
Pitch Black Manor are Joshua Bentley, Lyle Erickson and Chad Fifer.
Pitch Black Manor recently reunited, with bandmates Lyle Erickson, and Chad Fifer (now a well-known podcaster with the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast; having such notable return guests as Patton Oswalt and Chris Sarandon). Now, 25 years after their last show in the Quad-Cities, “we found ourselves, like many, scrambling for some meaning and direction during the pandemic so we turned to our Quad-City roots,” Bentley said recently.
They wrote a new album called “Monster Classics,” a 13-song all-Halloween themed album celebrating their shared interest in classic horror monster themes, goth rock music, and friendship.
“Why Halloween? Why now? It’s simple: hope,” Bentley said recently. “Our themes are dark, but the light of creation and friendship through music allowed us to transcend distance.” Fifer lives in Los Angeles and Erickson lives in Des Moines.
“It was time to come back to the Manor and light the fire of hope for our much beloved Halloween,” Bentley said, noting the album will be released on July 31.
Together with the release, the band even sold out a special run of blow-mold haunted house toys on Etsy, created specifically for the release.
“Monster Classics” was recorded in East Moline, Des Moines Iowa, and Santa Monica Calif. It was mixed and mastered by Erik Peabody at Viking Guitar Productions, Rochester, N.Y.
Their first official video, “Just Another Werewolf Love Song,” can be seen at youtube.com/watch?v=7fMMOsGpO5o. Listen to Pitch Black Manor at https://soundcloud.com/user-546091278, find them on Facebook at facebook.com/pitchblackmanor, and pitchblackmanor.com links to their Instagram account.
The album is available by e-mailing pitchblackmanor@gmail.com.
