Walk Among Us
Walk Among Us is the debut studio album by the American punk rock band Misfits, released in March 1982 by Ruby Records and its parent label Slash Records. It was the first full-length album to be released by the band, although it was the third to be recorded, after Static Age and 12 Hits from Hell. The recording sessions for Walk Among Us took place at multiple studios between June 1981 and January 1982, and the album also includes the track "Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?", which was recorded live at the Ritz in New York City. The album features a re-recording of the single "Night of the Living Dead", which was released on October 31, 1979.
This article is about the album. For the song, see American Psycho (album).Walk Among Us was first pressed with cover artwork featuring a pink background, with band's logo in pink. The second pressing introduced a purple background on the cover, though the pink logo remained unchanged. When the album was reissued in 1988 by Ruby Records, the purple cover was retained, but the band's logo was changed to a green color. Until 2018, all official vinyl or CD releases of the album in the United States were issued through Ruby, Slash, or Warner Records/Rhino. The album was reissued again on November 30, 2018, by Earache Records, with six limited-run variant colored pressings.
Recording[edit]
Prior to Walk Among Us, the Misfits had recorded and shelved two full-length albums: Static Age, which was recorded in 1978 but would remain unreleased in its entirety until 1996, and 12 Hits from Hell, which was recorded in 1980 and has never received an official wide release.[6] The recording sessions for Walk Among Us took place at multiple studios. The majority of the songs were recorded at Mix-O-Lydian Studio in Boonton, New Jersey no later than August 1981,[7] and these sessions also produced the recordings for the group's single "Halloween".[6]
The album's sixth track, "Hate Breeders", was recorded at Newfound Sound in Fair Lawn, New Jersey in June 1981.[7] The seventh and only live track on the album, "Mommy, Can I Go Out & Kill Tonight", was recorded on December 17, 1981, at the Ritz in New York City.[6][7] As the track fades out, the band can be heard beginning to play the song "London Dungeon", which was not included on the album in its entirety. In January 1982, overdubbing took place at Quad Teck in Los Angeles, California,[7] where Misfits vocalist Glenn Danzig would also mix the tracks with both Chris Desjardins of the Flesh Eaters and Pat Burnette.[8]
The track "Astro Zombies" takes its name from the title of the 1968 film The Astro-Zombies.[9][10] Additionally, the album title was inspired by the 1956 film The Creature Walks Among Us.[11]
Cover artwork[edit]
The cover for Walk Among Us features flying saucers from the 1956 film Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, as well as the "Rat-Bat-Spider" creature from the 1959 film The Angry Red Planet.[5] The first pressing of the album in the United States (as well as the Italian-issued import) featured cover artwork with a pink background and logo, whereas the second pressing of the album introduced a purple background, though the pink logo was retained.[6] When the album was reissued in 1988, the cover artwork once again featured a purple background, but the band's logo was changed from pink to green.[6] Reissues since 1988 in all formats have varied in usage of either the pink or purple covers. When the album was reissued in 2018 by Earache Records, the colors of the cover artwork were changed again, this time with a pink background and a green logo.[12]
In a 2009 interview with Joe Matera, Danzig expressed his displeasure with the album's cover artwork, stating that "I remember I flipped out on our label because it was supposed to be in all these different colors such as red, black and orange but the way it came out was truly awful. But they had already printed them anyway, though they had not shown us any proofs beforehand".[8]