Monolith Cocktail Blog

Our continuing partnership with the leading Italian culture/music site and platform Kalporz. 

At regular points during the year the Monolith Cocktail will be sharing posts from our Italian pen pals at Kalporz. This month, Lorenzo Centini peruses the latest album from the Italian band the Movie Star Junkies.

Movie Star Junkies “Walk On Bones”
(Beast Records, 2026)

Old legends and curses

Besides making me happy, it gives me a strange feeling of familiarity to encounter a new Movie Star Junkies album again after so many years. But I was the one who stopped following them after Sons of Dust. That was in 2012. In reality, they moved on, slowly, emerging from the depths of the crypt only when the time was right. Evil Moods and Shadow of a Rose carried on the legend of the darkest Italian band. In the voodoo sense. Punk and blues, r’n’b and bluegrass. Two years ago, it was a single, Boy, Life is Chaos, that so suddenly reawakened me and reminded me of old legends and curses.

Dance on a bed of bones

A few weeks ago, their new album, Walk On Bones, was released. It’s more or less what the title promises: a lopsided, at times sarcastic dance on a bed of bones, old sacrifices, old mysteries. A little less serene than their more recent efforts, on the twelve-inch scale. Hard to Beat, for example, is wild, relentless, and anarchic. Melvillian. They’re cursed, just as they were at the time of that phenomenal debut. It’s strange to think that eighteen years have passed. More time means less impetuosity and fewer rough edges, but also more stories to tell, more demons. Somewhere Below tells some of them, beneath the surface of the ocean, like a sea ballad. Just as Behind the Hills seems to refer to something not too far away, perhaps in the woods.

The darkness that remains, and the lights that come on

When the Night Comes, there’s still reason to be afraid, yet the album’s length also offers some reassurance. Sandra and In Circles are two jaunts, perhaps deliberately conceived one after the other, at the centre of the album, to break the bad grip. Don’t be afraid, however, to tackle Walk On Bones; it might seem less abysmal than I describe it. It depends on the inspiration, or how deep you intend to delve. In any case, a good dose of irony is always advisable, should you encounter a black mastiff and a funny demon at a crossroads.

70/100

(Lorenzo Centini)