45 Grave - Sleep In Safety [Green with Black Splatter]

Before American goth had a name, 45 Grave were already digging the plot. Assembled in Los Angeles from members of the Germs, the Consumers, the Bags, the Gun Club and the Screamers, the band are widely credited as one of the first American deathrock groups, and Sleep In Safety, released in 1983, is their only studio album and the lone recording of the original lineup.

Dinah Cancer fronts the band with a voice and presence somewhere between punk snarl and B-movie scream queen, backed by Paul B. Cutler on guitar, Rob Graves on bass, Don Bolles on drums and Paul Roessler on keyboards. The songs lurch from the eerie sprawl of "Insurance From God" and "Slice O' Life" to the breakneck punk of "Violent World" and the horror-surf twang of "Surf Bat." "Evil" became an early MTV clip, while the self-named "45 Grave" served as the band's theme song.

The album's most notorious moment is "Partytime," a graphic true-crime tale whose later single version landed on the soundtrack to The Return of the Living Dead, earning the band a cult following that has only grown since. More than four decades on, Sleep In Safety remains a cornerstone of deathrock and a touchstone for anyone who likes their punk with a side of the macabre.

Real Gone Music's reissue preserves the original gatefold artwork complete with lyrics and adds a custom inner sleeve drawn from the band's rare "A Tale of Strange Phenomena" press release, all pressed on green with black splatter vinyl. A fitting resurrection for a record that refuses to stay buried.