Borrom line: exactly how you want it.
If you (like me) find the John 5-era Rob Zombie albums a frustrating listen, with Rob’s signature creative vision mired among bland riffs and awkwardly-integrated “experiments”…well, I have bad news: John 5 is gone. He left the band to pursue his childhood dream (sitting on a tour bus with three middle-aged millionaires who hate each other). I personally wish him the best. But this forced Rob to make a horrible decision…rehire his original guitarist, who co-wrote what most would regard as his best solo album. Oh no, anything but that!
Straight away, Mike Riggs (and returning bassist Blasko) just fix everything that was wrong with the last four or five Rob Zombie records. It is brutal and direct and immediate. The Great Satan has three thoughts in its demented caveman prefrontal cortex. 1) Keep it short 2) Keep it simple 3) Refer to steps 1 and/or 2 as appropriate. The album ends with its idea of a slow and meditative epic dirge. One that’s three minutes and thirty seconds long.
Be warned: this is not a return to the Hellbilly Deluxe sound. If you want tons of samples and loops and electronic textures, that’s not really what he’s doing here. But if you want heaviness of the (shall we say) “metal” variety, you are feasting. The opening salvo of “FTW ’84” and “Tarantula” is astonishing in its destructive intensity: staccato riffs palm-muted at machine-gun speed and backed with Ginger Fish’s double-bass drumming, which I don’t think Rob has used in thirty years. [1]Not since White Zombie’s “Electric Head Pt.2 (The Ecstasy)” and “Feed The Gods”, to be precise.. Dare I say it, “Tarantula” even has some slight melodeath influences—those harmonized pitch-bends Riggs plays after the first chorus. The album’s stripped-down and raw, but bristling with surprising influences. It takes cues from genres and styles (such as extreme metal) that I never thought Rob would go near.
Oh, and there’s punk, too. The Misfits have always been more of an inspiration than a direct influence for Rob, but near the end of the album we get “The Black Scorpion”, an all-out tribute to “Green Hell” and company—fast, neck-wrecking moshing under a blaring farfisa organ. It’s really good! As is “Punks and Demons”, a nasty, lo-fi Venom-sounding track with an 80s Slayer riff on the chorus.
“(I’m a) Rock ‘N’ Roller” is a soul-deadened tribute to live performance, with lyrical references to literally-deadened David Bowie and Marc Bolan. (I’ve always suspected that Rob might be a secret T Rex fan, with whom he shares his psychedelic lyrical approach.) It has tense, thundercloud verses. What do ten thousand people sound like to ears ringing with tinnitus? Like nothing. The rockstar is in the masses, but not of the masses. Then the chorus arrives. Or rather, falls on your neck like a guillotine. “That doesn’t sound fun! Also, probably fatal!” Buddy, you’re in the Spookshow International. Having your head severed by a stainless steel blade is an inconvenience, yes, but not necessarily a fatal one. In fact, it’s pretty much the price of admission.
Then there’s the fourth track and possible album standout “Heathen Days”. Propulsive and addictive and fastfastfast, the track has more energy than a tokamak reactor. It holds up with the best stuff Rob Zombie has ever put on a record. I like the under-the-verse riff, where Riggs picks natural harmonics on the 10th and 12th fret (or something like that). Like, that’s all the sonic diversity I want, you know? I don’t really need bluegrass and chicken-picking and lap-steel slide guitar on a Rob Zombie record. I’m a simple man: just give me a natural harmonic now and then.
The album does lose some energy in its middle stretch: “Sir Lord Acid Wolfman” and “The Devilman” feel like they could be John 5 leftovers, and are a bit slow and baggy for my tastes. The former is apparently a pirate character Rob came up with (the patriarch of a Manson family on the high seas). The closing track “Unclean Animals” is wonderfully eerie. A psychedelic Iron Butterfly freakout that feels like being dead. You’re wandering down a long hallway, maybe some dark woods. You can’t tell whether you’re going to the good place or the bad one, but from the smell of sulfur hanging in the air, it ain’t looking great.
So, I guess we have a bona-fide comeback on our hands. Rob Zombie has returned. The Great Satan slaps, and I am beyond happy with 80-90% of it. “Who Am I”, asks track 5. For Rob, the answer is self-referential: *this.* I struggle to imagine a Rob Zombie fan who dislikes this. If you are that person, I choose my next words with love and pity: I do not understand you. Honestly, it might be time for the state to step in and make you comfortable. If music cannot bring you happiness, perhaps medication will.
References
| ↑1 | Not since White Zombie’s “Electric Head Pt.2 (The Ecstasy)” and “Feed The Gods”, to be precise. |
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