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The Twin Ports’ most ghoulish band rises from the grave, 10 years after its conception and four years after its demise. Not that they’ve regrouped. This is a retrospective of songs they’ve already released, multiple times in many cases, but these versions are previously unreleased live performances and remastered alternate session takes.

The Dark Underbelly was a meeting of three musical families, kind of like the Addams and the Munsters meet the Fireflies. Here it was the Petolettis, Robert on vocals, wife Diane on violin and son Nick on drums; Eric Lund on lead guitar and son Calvin on bass; Armond Blackwater (who has played with Steppenwolf) on keys and son Ash producing. 

They created an unusual brand of horror rock confronting issues such as death, alcoholism, suicide and the boogeyman that comes out of your TV set.

Last year Nick Petoletti, the band’s co-composer and archiver, sifted through his master tapes and found rare performances that were recorded multitrack. After many hours of meticulously organizing, splicing and “tracking which mic recorded what on who’s instrument on what night, what year, etc.,” he has repackaged a chunk of the band’s oeuvre and presented it here. There are 12 alternate studio versions of songs from their 2020 concept album Sons of Bert, then 11 songs from a 2018 show in Pattison Park. 

Revenge is only part one of the current project; a second volume is due. (The Blackwaters do not appear on this album, but presumably will on Vol. 2.) Also forthcoming is a DVD, which could prove most illuminating since the band was primarily a live act and hard to capture solely on audio. 

This album “is an opportunity to revisit the Sons of Bert project with a more detailed lens and experience it from a clearer perspective,” Nick writes in the booklet, which details the band’s history and its members. 

The striking cover art is a surreal painting by Robert, something he did decades ago, fitting because much of the band’s material is based on songs and writings he did in the 1980s and ‘90s. 

“The chance to go back and ‘revisit’ and rediscover something is a privilege,” Nick writes.

Whatever version you listen to (they’re all available on Bandcamp), the songs are indelible from the moment you hear them: weird, darkly humorous, often too dark for comfort, a throwback to 1960s metal and 1930s horror B-movies, yet infectious, urgent and fresh – or, to reference Young Frankenstein, freshly dead.