From workaholic New Hampshire indie-label owner Otto Kinzel at Bluntface comes the second full-length from Boston-based industrial goth-meisters Virus Cycle, following up on their 2011 debut Alice In Zombieland. As you see, there’s a theme in place with the band’s chef/cook/bottle-washer guy, Johnny Virum, namely zombies, so the wingnut-spook vibe is on for the duration, beginning with the appropriately titled “The Dead Hate the Living,” which fixates on not-the-most-great mud-guitar riff of the century, probably mainly inserted as the opener as a tone-setter, a Dawn of the Dead-style “newscast” about the apocalypse running through it. You and I both know that’s been done before, so let’s move on to the rest of the thing, which is surprisingly cool for such a low-budget exercise. “Why Don’t You Love Me” combines old-school Skinny Puppy darkwave with a vocal that actually recalls David Byrne if anybody, and this is followed by “Love Me to Death,” which involves Virum throwing a Fields of the Nephilim-style Cookie Monster vocal over some menacing guitar-wonk mud a la Gothminister (Virum opened for those guys once). Nothing much wrong going on here; certainly competitive with what any German tats-n-eyeliner dudes are doing now. Download the LP for free at http://bluntfacerecords.com/l/8aayxd/8376326; http://bluntfacerecords.com/zombichrist.cfm. A- —Eric W. Saeger