By my count, this is the ninth time we’ve written about Curse Walk, the solitary release from Shaboi. Our 2019 writeup – celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the record – probably said all that needed to be said about it but it’s become a bit of tradition around here to say a few words in its honor.
By and large, there aren’t a lot of Halloween albums. Even fewer still from Nashville artists. That’s not to say there are none! There’s a deep catalog of works from Boo Dudes, various worthwhile compilation releases, enigmatic soundtracks, concept records and compelling singles in droves if you’re paying attention but they don’t really hold a candle to the number of Christmas albums. Halloween specific music is still a delightful rarity when viewed relatively to other niche holiday-specific genres.
What makes Curse Walk so worthy of writing about nine different times? Partially, it was released by yk Records so there’s some inherit bias on the part of your author. More importantly, it’s a record that doesn’t continuously try to present itself as a spooky or scary concept record. The entire playthrough is less than 20 minutes but manages to cover rock, hip-hop, spoken word melodrama, country, folk and a dash of R&B spiritual. It’s erratic but it somehow manages to stay cohesive. The songwriting is earnest but never takes itself too seriously. It’s a record that embraces the fun of Halloween, while eschewing the darkest parts of the season and never embracing the pessimistic.
It’s a record that’s enjoyable to listen to any time of year but really hits home throughout October. There’s only a few days left in the month for its full potency so we recommend you put it in heavy rotation. We look forward to talking about it again next year.