Yes, our favorite band of merry misfits, the gastly ghouls and gals behind Grave Danger have returned once more with a special musical treat for your ear holes just in time for Halloween. 'tis the spooky season for "Skath" (yes, that's Ska + Goth) collective Grave Danger, who have returned from the, uh—grave, with their brand new single, "Specter Inspector." The band's mastermind and multi-instrumentalist David Schwantes says, "I've always enjoyed "Ska spy songs," in the tradition of "Spy Market" by Let's Go Bowling and "Street Sweeper" by Dance Hall Crashers and I thought the phrase "specter inspector" was just funny." Further explaining, "this song was a chance to lean into a driving bassline, a slinky horn part, lots of organ, and build a film noir-style detective world full of ghosts and super-natural intrigue." "Specter Inspector" is just the first of two long-awaited back-to-back Grave Danger singles.


Taking sonic cues from Save Ferris' "Superspy" and "Lady Luck" by Dance Hall Crashers, "Specter Inspector" would fit right at home on the soundtrack to a Spy vs. Spy comic book. The song features everything a well-rounded Skath song should: a wagging bassline, swaggering horns, and just enough eerie organs and theremin to make the song spooky, not cheesy (or, well, maybe, just cheesy enough!) Singer Chris Marcanti's gruff, soulful singing showcases the song's titular character, Specter Inspector, who is either a ghost who is a private eye or a private eye that works exclusively with ghosts, following in the playful footsteps the band has tread since this project's inception. It might be easy to write Grave Danger off as a novelty act because... well, maybe, it is. But it's, also, a daydream realized—or possibly a nightmare.


It sounds like what might happen if Bobby "Boris" Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers were still alive and listened to The Mighty Mighty BossToneS: fun and furious music intended to make listeners laugh and dance. Most importantly, Grave Danger is a passion project created by dads and moms, aunts and uncles, software engineers and IT professionals, managers and entrepreneurs and CPA's, grown-ups who work for non-profits and public schools—regular people who, every once in a while, want to don corpse paint, pick up their instruments, shake off some dust, and blow the audience away. Grave Danger can, also, be heard on the soundtrack to the video game SkateBIRD, a Tony Hawk-style skateboarding game where players control a tiny bird riding a Tech Deck through bedrooms and rooftops.

SkateBIRD is now available on Switch, Steam, Xbox, and more. Grave Danger's current line-up is Dave Schwantes on guitars, bass, keyboards, tenor sax, baritone saxophone, backing vocals, drummer Dane Erbach, vocalist Chris Marcanti, trombonist Margaret Miller, trumpet player Andy Miller, and Emily Erbach on theremin. "Specter Inspector" was produced by Schwantes and mixed and mastered by Justin Lebreck at Waysound Studios with single artwork created by David Buist (@david_buist.) Grave Danger's "Specter Inspector" is now available on streaming services and is ready to be added to your spook-tacular Halloween playlists. Stay tuned for Grave Danger's next eerie offering!