The Tomb of Nick Cage bills itself as a horror-rock, new-wave, metal, deathrock band—can’t argue with that. Horror-hardcore bands White Zombie and GWAR seem to be obvious influences for singer and synth player Kym Trailz; likewise the punk rock-inspired all-female band L7.

Cryptids and Creatures—the second album from Trailz and the New Orleans band named after the pyramid-shaped tomb actor Nicholas Cage owns in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1—presents a razor-sharp rock unit that often, but not always, performs songs about monsters, massacres and other mayhem.

Cryptids and Creatures shows Trailz’s songwriting skills have grown since the Tomb of Nick Cage’s debut, The Pharaoh of New Orleans. And Trailz’s bandmates—guitarists Taylor Suarez and Aaron Maguire, bassist Sean Mooney and drummer Edward Joubert—wield brutally effective hard-rock chops. The album’s production, however, may not capture the breadth of Tomb of Nick Cage’s sonic power. On record, this band should roar like 1970s-era Black Sabbath.

The album opens hard with lead screamer Trailz raging through the relentless “Crucible.” Canine howling and slicing guitar color the horrific “Rougarou.” There’s mock terror in “Night of the Lamprey,” a song about an invasion of blood-sucking, primitive fish. Slaughter happens again on “Nail Gun Massacre,” which features simulated siren screams and buckets of sludgy guitar distortion.

Dark though Cryptids and Creatures is, Trailz chose to give “Bikini Atoll,” her homage to the Micronesian islands where the United States tested 23 nuclear bombs, an acoustic arrangement that’s as close to pop as the album gets. There’s another surprise in the final track, “Crop Circles.” Its upbeat and melodic finale shows that the Tomb of Nick Cage is too versatile to be typecast as strictly horror-rock.