997. Danzig / Black Laden Crown. 2017. 3/5

Is there any use trying to compare Danzig albums against each other? The man himself has been around now for decades, and he has been a torch bearer and an influential player as much as he has been a crazy loon and a faller upon bad times musically. The revolving door of members of the band has been used more often as the years go by such that the name Danzig now almost literally mean the one and only Glenn Danzig. Whether that has been a problem with the albums the band has released is an individual assessment, as will the enjoyment of the songs brought forth. Perhaps sadly, other factors must also be considered.

The title track “Black Laden Crown” opens up the album and is an enjoyable start. Following this I must ask a question. Don’t you just love the rhythm of “Eyes Ripping Fire”? I do. This is what brings out the best in Danzig’s music. You’re head bounces along with the drum beat and riff, Glenn’s vocals do their best work in this environment, and you also get to insert a guitar solo to impress the mob as well. This is the format of song that I think brings out the best in the band’s work. “Devil on Hwy 9” goes in the same direction with the same qualities. “Last Ride” infuses the much slower maudlin pace that Danzig often sit on, but because of the energy of Glenn’s vocals it makes it a classic Danzig tune rather than a dull and bonded track that would be the case if anyone else attempted it. The problem with latter tracks such as “The Witching Hour” and so forth is that there isn’t that same energy in the vocal track, and this the songs begin to fall flat because of it. “But a Nightmare” seems to have guitar level problems but more importantly a guitar and drums riff that doesn’t change for the whole second half of the song makes it feel as though it drags on forever. “Skulls & Daisies” could have been improved greatly with the same enthusiasm in Glenn’s vocals as he gave in “Last Ride”. “Blackness Falls” sounds like the same song, with the same lack of drive. And “Pull the Sun” has that reasonable Danzig croon within but it somehow feels a bit like too little too late.
So now we can address some simple issues. Why spend three years over recording nine songs, with five different drummers? And the production is a mess, if not non-existent. You can hear the difference between tracks, where some come across as a normal sounding environment, and others sound like they are demos being recorded on an old four track in the lounge room or garage. Is this a thing? A rebellion against the fact everyone can sound like a pro now with a laptop and a microphone, so we must make this sound like it’s B grade as a two fingered salute to the amateurs of the world? I don’t know, but there’s a difference between ‘stripped back’ and ‘poor production’. This is generally the latter, and it doesn’t improve the album as a result. It also suffers from not having a band as such together to record the album. Along with the five drummers, of which Glenn himself was one, the rest of the guitars are recorded by Glenn along with Tommy Victor. As such, there’s not a lot of individuality there to help influence the tracks in a positive way. It cried out for players of the stature of former band members Johnny Christ and Eerie Von to make their instrumental pieces their own and add their own flavour to the tracks. Because this is basically the same two musicians on all the instruments, that flavour doesn’t tend to seep through.

I started off by asking should we compare Danzig albums from different eras. Mainly I guess that this questions comes across because the early music this band released was and is so impressively awesome that it becomes a difficult thing to equal. While I don’t think this is a bad album, I think the arguments as set out above do not allow it to break free and be as enjoyable as I feel it could be given the basics of the music. While not wanting to hark back on the band’s past, I think a dose of the inspiration of those albums would have spruced this up nicely.

Rating:  “Deep down the sound of a bloody song never ends”.  3/5

530. Danzig / II: Lucifuge. 1990. 4/5

In 1988, Danzig released its self-titled debut album on Def American Recordings, an album produced by Rick Rubin and featuring the collective talents of Chuck Biscuits on drums, Eerie Von on bass, John Christ on guitar and Glenn Danzig on vocals. The album was a success from the outset and the band toured worldwide in support of it throughout 1988 and 1989. They opened for Slayer on their South of Heaven tour in North America, and Metallica on their ...And Justice for All tour in Europe, two of the most successful and attended tours of the late 1980’s. Following this they subsequently headlined their own tour, which included support acts such as Mudhoney, Accept, Armored Saint, White Zombie and Sick of It All. This all helped lead to “Danzig” becoming the band's best-selling album, eventually going platinum in the US.
The follow up album was always going to be an important step for the band, and to this end, it took 11 months and spread between three different studios to write and record. Some of this was interspersed with the tours that were mentioned previously, but overall it as the longest that Glenn Danzig himself had ever spent in the studio recording an album before.
In an interview with Steffan Chirazi in RIP Magazine in 1990, Glenn said in regards to the upcoming second album; "Well, I think the last record, compared to the last Samhain record, is basically what we would've done anyway. This is more Danzig. The last album had more of me in it, and while I write the lyrics and the songs, this one had more of a band stamp on it. Like when you see the band live, this is much more of that kind of energy and power. Everybody's much more comfortable with each other now. We've toured with each other, hung with each other. The rhythm section is much tighter. It's just a much better band, and that comes through on the album."
All of this transposed into the band’s sophomore album, one that would twist the wheels of change a further notch around the spiel, and into the darkness of Lucifuge, a title that translates to ‘flee the light’, which indeed this album does.

One thing that this band does not do is conform to any genre of music, nor look to appease the music critics when it comes to what they are writing. And one of the main elements of this sophomore release is the significant use of blues music on this album, something that can be a surprise to the uninitiated. Compared to the more uptempo and hard core tracks, the blues tracks – which really are very much almost straight blues with a slightly harder tone in the music – do mark a major change to the pace and style of the album. And they're the ones that pop out at you when you listen to the album. The third track following the two outstanding openers is “Killer Wolf”, a song that Glenn himself has called "my version of an old blues song about a guy who wolfs around the door of every girl in town”. This has more attitude and familiar characteristics than a true blues track, but the heritage is there for all to hear. Conversely, Glenn described "I'm the One" as "another blues song...about a guy realizing his destiny”. "I'm the One" was apparently originally recorded for the first album. In an interview with Guitar Schoo magazine in 1994, John was quoted: "We actually recorded 'I'm the One' for the first record, but we decided to save it for this record. It fit the mood of the second album much better. Glenn wanted to do that song for a long time – he even knew what kind of video he wanted it to have long before we did it. It's a cool song: just some guitar and vocals and a little hi-hat in the background”. This is pure blues with the only point of difference being Glenn’s distinctive vocals to separate it from any of the great blues artists. In the back third of the album, “Blood and Tears” offers us a blues-based ballad of sorts, and Glenn’s ability to on occasions channel the vocal cords of Elvis Presley come to the fore here. It is a song that for all intents and purposes should not work, a punk hardcore influenced group of musicians creating a 1950’s styled blues rock ballad in 1990 should be a recipe for disaster. And still, these four musicians make it work. Glenn has said in interviews it is his favourite from the album. I personally would choose several others in front of it.
Now while there can still be blues themes drawn from the other tracks on the album they have more to them than just those elements. “Tired of Being Alive” has a great groove from the outset, settling in musically in a wonderful mood that is not dark but sits comfortably in an almost sinister like loop. Chuck’s drumming here seems understated but is far more than that, breaking out in a way that enhances the song itself without dominating it, and merges seamlessly with Eerie’s bass line. John’s circular riff keeps the track moving forward, and all three combined build to the end of the track, where in the last 30 seconds they are all suddenly at the front of the mix in a more powerful conclusion to the track. Glenn is the main star here though, his vocals drive the track throughout, marking one of the best songs here without any histrionics or overpowering from any of the band members. “Her Black Wings” is mostly dominated by Glenn’s pure emotive vocal chords, the ones that when he utilises them just create everything great about the song. The power coming from his lungs into his vocal chords at moments on this track are booming and demanding your full attention. He sounds so good on this song, and it is another where John’s short but important guitar solo breaks out and highlights its appearance on the track. “Devil’s Plaything” is one of the best songs here, drawn mostly from Glenn’s vocals that take centre stage here in that dominating fashion that bring out the best in his singing and in his songs. “777” moves along between the quiet to the mid-tempo pontificating from Glenn, mixing both tempos on the longest song of the album. Through the over repeated lyrics and lack of variety in the riff this song does have its drawbacks. “Girl” features hard riding vocals, hard hitting drums and hard riffing guitar, all in that slow mid-tempo that can sometimes have songs get bogged down in themselves, but the sheer hard playing on this song makes up for that. And then the closing track of the album, “Pain in the World” is basically a doom metal song, with that wonderful doom sound from the guitar and bass that booms through the track from start to finish, Chuck’s drumming rolls and patterns moving in and out of sync with the track, and Glenn preaching of the pain and agony in the world around him. Once again John, Eerie and Chuck offer so much in this song that is sometimes overlooked.
Beyond this though, it is the opening two tracks on the album that steal the show. “Long Way Back from Hell” is a song that found its development more difficult than most. John was quoted in an interview about the track: "We worked on the beginning of that song for a long time before we finally got it right – it always sounded too empty. But when Eerie came in with that galloping bass-line, it all kind of fell into place. It has a lot of energy to it and was probably one of the best songs on that album”. And it is the energy and faster tempo that really gets the album into gear from the outset, and Glenn’s enthusiastic and energised vocals alongside John’s ripping solo in the middle of the track that makes this song a beauty. This then segues beautifully and perfectly into “Snakes of Christ” which takes all of the positive energy from the opening track and channels it through into this second song. Building on the prototype Danzig songs from the first album such as “Twist of Cain” and “Mother”, “Snakes of Christ” takes us further on that ride, and creates one of the best one-two punch openings of an album from 1990. And given the quality of the albums released that year, that is a big statement, but one that still holds up 35 years later.

While I wasn’t too far off the mark when it came to discovering Danzig the band on their arrival on the world stage with the release of their debut album in 1988, it wasn’t until a couple of years later that I did actually hear that album. And was at around the time that this album was released, because I was offered a taped copy of this album not too far in the future from that moment. It meant that I was discovering both of the band’s first two albums at the same time, something that I think on this occasion actually worked pretty well, because I had them on the same cassette tape recorded for me, and I could just listen to one and then flip it over and hear the other. I do remember comparing the two at the time, and occasionally toying with the idea of taking my favourite tracks from the two albums and making one ‘album’ as such. But even at that time it didn’t feel right to do that, I had to listen to each album all the way through, because that’s how albums were meant to be listened to.
The very slight reservations that I had back in the early 1990’s when it came to Lucifuge are the same very slight reservations that I hold with it today. A couple of the songs, if I take them out of the context of the album itself, do have characteristics that aren’t exactly my cup of tea. It is fair to say that the more blues-based tracks and the slower tempo tracks are ones that I can take or leave under most circumstances, and that the ones that flow in that direction on this album sometimes make me a little impatient for the next track. But it is a small thing. When I go to this album and put it on, I never think of skipping a song while I’m listening to the album. It never enters my head. But in a more specialised position of actually sitting down to listen to this album critically, these are the kind of things that I notice. I’ve had this album out over the last week to once again enjoy its tones, and my critiquing of it here has not affected how much I still love this album. Of the 12 studio albums the ban has released, this remains a very solid #3 for me in their catalogue. And it is songs like this that keeps it there.

353. Danzig / Devil Songs: Live USA 1989 [Bootleg]. 1990. 3/5

Here is another bootleg (geez I copped a few in a row here...), this one from Danzig in 1989, and is a B quality album from the 1989 tour.
This contains the best of Danzig's early work, as well as a couple of hits from his Samhain and Misfits days.
Overall I think the first half of the album, containing songs such as "Mother", "Am I Demon" and "Twist Of Cain" is terrific, but is let down a little by the back half of the concert.
Still worth a listen for the fans.

Rating: Good for the fans, probably not for those with only a passing interest in the band. 3/5.

207. Danzig / Danzig IV. 1994. 3.5/5.

Danzig’s rise through the music world reached a zenith following the release of the band’s third album “How the Gods Kill” in 1992, after which they went out on a world tour that saw them traverse the globe and not only headline their own shows, but also open for bands such as Metallica and Black Sabbath on their enormous tours. The release of the EP “Thrall-Demonsweatlive” saw even greater interest in the band, the hybrid studio tracks / live tracks EP seeing the revitalisation of the single “Mother”, with the live version getting radio airplay and the video appearing on MTV’s Headbangers Ball and also the show Beavis & Butthead.
Despite the rise, the tension and disapproval within the ranks was starting to reach its crescendo. Various interviews state the supposed fact that Danzig and Christ rarely see eye to eye when it comes to the music and the decisions around the band. Danzig was quoted in interviews at the time that he wrote the majority of the guitar parts himself, and would then produce the songs from that and the solos that Christ would then offer as his parts, while Christ seemed to tow the line in this regard, but wanted more for his guitar to be able to do, both on the album and live on stage. This was their fourth album together, and it looked as though those tensions were wearing very thin. Drummer Chuck Biscuits left the band once the recording of the album was completed, a couple of times in fact, but was replaced forever prior to the tour to promote the album was begun. John Christ and Eerie Von had also made their decision to move on from the band, but ended up remaining until the tour was completed.
The writing credits on the album are all to Glenn Danzig which was to become an even more regular thing, and even though music was in flux during the 1990’s, it is not hard to notice the rapid change in the stye of music Danzig the band released beyond this album, with the complete change of personnel.

The album opens at a cracking pace and style with “Brand New God”. Fast and furious, hard hitting drums from Chuck Biscuits, and jiving along before it slows for the middle section, and a change up with that awesome riff through the middle ground of the track by John Christ while Glenn croons perfectly over the top, and then we return to the same pace as the start to close out the track. It’s a terrific start to the album. “Little Whip” changes things up immediately, falling back to an almost funereal pace and style before breaking out with Chuck’s thumping drums and Glenn’s forceful vocal to get the song moving in the right direction. “Cantspeak” is one of two singles released from the album, neither of which recaptured the magic of what “Mother” had done on the charts. This dominated by Glenn’s vocal, almost spoken word throughout with muted accompaniment from the instruments. Then comes the positively wonderful “Going Down to Die”, which channels an old blues style with a simple riff and drum pattern as Glenn moves from sweet to full blown vocals as only, he can in the most terrific way. His vocals here create such an amazing emotional reaction to the track and the lyrics and drives all the energy of the song simply with his voice. This is followed by more death with “Until You Call on the Dark”, driving down the same course and tempo.
“Dominion” rocks up a little harder, and features a terrific solo from John, one that lights up the track even further, with Eerie’s bass line underneath bringing forward in the mix a much better collaboration between the two guitars. “Bringer of Death” is a ripper track, combining John’s riffing guitar and piano, and Glenn spitting out lyrics in fabulous style. It gains in speed throughout and captures the mood of the lyrical output perfectly.
“Sadistikal” is the second of three almost spoken word tracks on the album, dealing with themes of pain, suffering and sadism. Accusations about the imagery of parts of this album trending towards satanism could be partly traced to this track as well as the final hidden track on the album “Invocation” which is more or less the same style. Are they necessary on this album? Are they all a part of the theme as written? There are several arguments that can be made about that.
“Son of the Morning Star” follows and channels “How the Gods Kill” from the previous album, with its slow heartfelt beginning before breaking into the heavy blanketed second half of the song with John’s striking solo leading it out. “I Don’t Mind the Pain” moves back into a mid-tempo pace drawn along by Glenn’s vocals leading the atmosphere of the song. “Stalker Song” is another beauty, moving in and out of that slow maudlin tempo again, the great combining of guitar and bass here with the perfect input of drums helps give Glenn a terrific base on which to croon at his best throughout.
“Let it Be Captured” backs back into the low-tempo track, which is interesting because of the fact that, inspired by accusations that their songs contained hidden Satanic messages, the guitar tracks for "Cantspeak" are those of "Let It Be Captured" played in reverse. John Christ explained in an interview how Eerie Von had the idea of playing one of our songs backwards, but in the end, they became so obsessed that they were trying to play "Let It Be Captured" backwards, which ended up creating a whole new song, "Cantspeak". Well, that’s one way to do it!

Those first three Danzig albums were enormous to me when they were released. In a music world that was changing from the time the debut came out in 1988, and up this one when it came out in 1994, those three highly unique albums with a solid core of musicians made such an impression by sticking to their formula, which was quite an amazing thing. Having been introduced to the band by one of my best friends in 1990, he again came to the party when this album was released, furnishing me with a C60 cassette that managed to fit the album on just about perfectly.
And I was excited to hear it. The previous album “How the Gods Kill” had for me been an absolute revelation, and then the EP “Thrall-Demonsweatlive” had been spun to death in my CD player on its release. I had even been able to see them live at Selina’s in eastern Sydney in one of the best concerts, still, that I’ve seen. So I was ready for something truly spectacular when I first got this album. Perhaps as a result it isn’t a true surprise that I was slightly underwhelmed when I first listened to it. I really had built it up in my mind, and while I didn’t hate it, I didn’t love it either. 1994 and 1995 was a bit like that for me in music. I was expecting different things and rarely got what I expected. I put the album back in the glove box of the car, and though I’m not certain of the timeline, it wasn’t until a couple of months later that I was rummaging around and found it again, and decided to put it in the tape player. And THAT moment is what sticks in my mind, because once the album started THAT time, it was Danzig, and it was “wow, this sounds great!” And I was away. It stayed in my car’s tape player for ages, and I finally found what I was looking for. It is amazing with music that at times, you just need the right moment and place for an album to begin to truly find what you like about it. And my car’s stereo over the years has been that place for many albums.
So “Danzig 4” is a beauty, but it was to be the end of that era, and the loss of John Christ, Eerie Von and Chuck Biscuits meant that the albums going forward would be of a different style. There was more good music to come, but the consistency that had come from the band’s first four releases would not be repeated again.

206. Danzig / III : How the Gods Kill. 1992. 5/5.

Danzig the band came from the freshly curated ashes of the band Samhain, who pretty much closed out a gig and then moved onto this next phase of their existence. Producer Rick Rubin had been out and about at gigs around the country, looking for bands to sign to his record label. And while he had initially only been interested in signing Glenn Danzig, and putting him in as the singer of a band that Rubin would put together, Danzig had apparently refused to continue unless his Samhain bandmate Eerie Von was retained as bass guitarist. With the addition of John Christ on guitar and Chuck Biscuits on drums, Danzig the band was born.
Two albums had been released, and they had opened on such ridiculous tours as Slayer’s “South of Heaven” tour and Metallica’s “...And Justice For All” tour. They had gained some notoriety for the video for their first single “Mother”. And the sales of both albums had been good. Coming into the band’s third album with this success behind them no doubt gave them a greater affinity with what they wanted to achieve with the new album. From the reports at the time, Rubin had become ‘less interested’ in the band by this stage of its development and was becoming less hands on when it came to the production side of things, and thus Glenn ends up being credited as a co-producer for the album. Did this help the construction of the album, that the direction the band moved in here was helped by the fact that Danzig was more hands on than the historically more controlling Rubin? That’s not an answer I can answer, but I know that this is different again from those first two Danzig albums, and that the confidence to move in this direction seems to have been one the band had made of their own accord.

Danzig has always been a band beyond classifying into a genre, and fans from the assorted bands of their past sometimes have a difficult time reconciling those differences. In many ways I believe that “How the Gods Kill” is the culmination of all of those years, and creates a modern mature and electrifying album that retains the mystery and madness of the early years of the Misfits and Samhain while delving into songs where each of the four members showcase their best attributes in the best possible way.
It is interesting just what place the bluesy sound takes on parts of this album. That hard based blues beat in “Bodies” just works so well. I mean if the blues was played like this all the time I’d enjoy it a whole lot more. The same is true of “Heart of the Devil” which utilises the same sound, and indeed apparently blues legend Willie Dixon was going to guest on the track, but unfortunately died from heart failure before he could come in and lay down his part. Prior to this album being written and recorded the band had played an acoustic show on Halloween, where they played some originals but also some blues tracks by Willie Dixon and also Muddy Waters. There seems little doubt that this had an effect on the writing of songs for this album.
The mood and groove of this album is what sends tingles down the spine when listening though. I love those first two Danzig albums, don’t get me wrong, but there has always been something special about this one. The songs can stall into slow quiet pieces with clear guitar and quietly spoken vocals and then burst into something more powerful and heavy with the click of your fingers, and it doesn’t ever seem out of place. Take a song like the opening track “Godless”, that pounds out of the speakers at you from the start in the great tradition of heavy Danzig tracks, before coming to a stop in traffic, the song back to a crawl as Glenn comes in with his vocals. This momentum is retained for minutes, until the music winds up again for the next verse, and Johnny Christ’s solo takes over through to almost the track’s conclusion where it finds the traffic snarl again and pulls up for the finale. It’s a brilliant track, but it is a style that only Danzig could get away with. Brilliant. The title track “How the Gods Kill” has a similar concept, a very quiet contemplative beginning with Glenn’s vocal lines barely being heard, before busting into the heavy beat almost halfway through the track and the song speeds off again. There aren’t many artists who can design this type of track and actually make it work, and I mean really work. Danzig does, and it most definitely does here.
The remainder of the album is just as good, combining the mid-tempo range songs with those that gain in intensity throughout. “Anything” is probably still my favourite song here. The clear guitar and soft vocals to start the song, before exploding into the heart of the song. Glenn’s vocals here are at their peak. “Dirty Black Summer” sounds like a song that wants to be a single, perhaps the most simplified of the songs on this album, which doesn’t distract from it at all. Indeed it was retained in setlists well beyond the following tour. “Left Hand Black” ramps up the metal-ness, held together by Eerie’s terrific bassline and dominated by Johnny’s ripping riffs and Glenn’s hard core vocals. Just an awesome song as well. “Sistinas” allows Glenn to bring his Elvis styled vocals to the fore, indeed if it was outside of the album you could almost believe it was an Elvis cover... though of course most of Elvis’s songs were already cover songs. “Do You Wear the Mark” brings the hard core back after that interlude, an awesome hard riff running along throughout as Glenn hots those unique notes again. The album concludes with the second simplified song on the album, “When the Dying Calls”, another easy song to groove along to as the album plays itself out.

 
On a story I will likely bring to you again, I had this album on one side of a C90 cassette tape, with Megadeth’s “Countdown to Extinction”, which was released on the exact same day, on the other side, and I played this tape to death in the nursery my then fiancé and I owned in Kiama at the time. It went around and around for weeks and weeks, and I knew these albums as well as any that I owned at the time. I was also lucky enough to see Danzig live the following year at Selina’s on their Thrall-Demonsweat Tour, a gig that is still one of the most amazing I have ever seen, and getting to converse with Eerie Von before the gig started. Great memories of an interesting time of my life.
For 30 years, this album has been one of those that, when I’m scanning the CD shelves to find something to listen to, that I will often come across, and immediately grab it and put it on. It is one of those albums that I have an unbreakable love for, that I listened to so intensely when I first got it that it joined the ranks of the albums that immediately remind me of the time when it was released, with the flood of pictures of that time coming in every time I listen to it. Which is still often.

205. Danzig / Danzig. 1988. 4/5.

Glenn Danzig had already had quite the storied career by the time we had reached the mid-1980's, with several smaller bands before he formed the Misfits in the 1970’s who became hugely influential, and then once that band collapsed in on itself, he went on to form Samhain in the early 1980’s. It was this band that attracted the attention of several influential people, including producer Rick Rubin who signed them to his Def Jam Recordings label. Apparently, the story goes that Rubin at first only wanted to sign Danzig and hoped to assemble a "super-group" with the talented vocalist at the centre, but Danzig refused to agree to the record deal unless bassist Eerie Von remained in the group. Rubin eventually agreed, but changes to the other two positions in the band came with the agreement, with guitarist Damien Marshall replaced by John Christ. Sometime in 1987, Danzig decided to change the name of Samhain to match his surname, Danzig. Varied reasons have been given for this move, the most cited being that this move would prevent him from ever again having to start anew, regardless of lineup changes in the band Rubin has suggested that he called for the change in band name to reflect the change in musical direction that they envisioned occurring between Samhain and Danzig. When London May was replaced with Chuck Biscuits on drums, Samhain officially ceased to exist, and the first Danzig lineup was complete.
Danzig has credited both Cliff Burton and James Hetfield from Metallica with helping to raise awareness about his music: quoted as saying "I first met them at a Black Flag gig, and then we became kinda friends. We'd often bump into each other on the road...James and Cliff helped to spread the word about my music, and I was very grateful to them."
Recorded at several different times between September 1987 and April 1988, the new band went into the studio on the back of a legacy built up over two different bands with a change in musical direction, and one that faced another refinement for the first album of the next generation.

In different periods of his career Glenn Danzig has been compared to both Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison, although more accurately he has been referred to as Evil Elvis. In particular it his crooning that probably brings about tis comparison, and it isn’t as wild as it may seem, and for me it really comes through on this album at times. The Elvis dulcet tones are certainly a feature in the slower portions of these songs, while he also has that Morrison charisma in his voice. But he makes it his own and not in a way where he is trying to be an imitator, as is proven when he crashes into the faster and high portions of his vocal capacity, with the smooth honeyed shriek that is as much a part of the songs of this band than anything else.
The songs all hit their maximum tempo which is set by the perfect groove of Chuck Biscuits’ bubbling drum beat and Eerie Von’s powerfully rumbling bass lines that hit you in the chest throughout. This gives John Christ the licence to punctuate the solid base of the song set up by these two with his short sharp riffing into his terrific solo’s that highlight each track.
Enter another entrant for best Album 1 Side 1 Track 1 contest, with the brilliant “Twist of Cain” that opens the album in style, featuring the best of all the band, but in particular those Glenn Danzig vocals, well supported by the back ups which include an uncredited but overexcited James Hetfield. This still ranks as one of the band best songs, and still gets sung at a loud volume whenever it gets played. “Not of This World” builds from a loosely sedate beginning to a faster and more overriding solo section with a building of speed and intensity in both music and vocals. Glenn builds in dominance throughout, while John Christ’s lead guitar holds fort in the second half of the song to rise above. Both “She Rides” and “Soul on Fire” are of a slower tempo than the first two tracks here but they hold their own, very much in a different direction than either of Glenn’s earlier bands would have moved, but highlight the progression this band was making from them.
The songs such as “Am I Demon” come along that resemble a freight train as it rumbles past and on into the distance, the rhythm that holds together all the way through the song, not swaying or changing in that pace, as John Christ struts that wonderful guitar riff throughout, only substituting a solo piece when it becomes necessary, and Glenn powering on vocals over the top. Just a terrific song. Then there is “Possession” which again shuffles along from start to finish with great attitude, but then the varied stylings of “End of Time” which comes with a staccato guitar riff for the verse before morphing into an almost pop riff onto the bridge. “End of Time” is the counter point to the majority of the songs on the album, but loses nothing in comparison and offers an interesting change in the style of the template. The cover of Albert King’s “The Hunter” is always an interesting one for me, mainly as it varies from the way the rest of the album is written. And that is evident again in the closing track “Evil Thing” that distances itself from the general template of what has come before it, with a faster tempo and Glenn really letting rip in a style perhaps closer to the hard core punk of earlier days.
The song that the album is probably best known for is “Mother”, which like most of Danzig’s best builds from a slow and almost maudlin beginning into a powerful explanation of Glenn’s vocals into the middle of the song, and brought home in style with Johnny Christ’s solo supreme. It’s the power of the instrument trio that makes this and every song on the album so spectacular, creating a bombastic piece of every track without shoving it down the throat of the listener. Each song finds a way to pound you through the chest and drag you into the album through the sheer character and essence of the basis of the songs – the powerful drums, the thumping bass guitar and the ripping guitar riffs.

For whatever reason it was, I missed this album on its release, and didn’t really find Danzig until their second album was released a couple of years later. That mistake was eventually rectified, and I had this album not long after. And there is no doubt that it was a lot different from what I was listening to at that time. 1990 was a pretty big year for albums, and it would have been better for me to have picked this up in 1988. But mixed in amongst the other goodness that I purchased in 1990, this still found a way to keep its head above water and get itself played every so often.
It wasn’t until 1992 and the release of the band’s third album “How the God’s Kill” that I really came to appreciate this album as it deserved to be, not only because that album was so good, but the lack of any real competition at that time meant this began to be played a lot more, and I was able to fully appreciate just how good an album it was. And is.
Over the years, that appreciation for this album, and my love of this album, has continued to grow. The four members are unique, and here produce a truly unique sound that stands the test of time. It is almost a flawless album, written and recorded in a time when this genre of music – if you can truly label it as a particular genre – was not one that was receiving all of the plaudits. That songs such as “Twist of Cain”, “She Rides”, “Am I Demon” and “Mother” among others can still be revered as they are is a testament to the quality of the album and of the band itself. And having seen them live in 1993, when they were at the peak of their powers, I can honestly say that everything on this album holds up live as much as it does here on the original studio recordings.

171. Danzig / Circle Of Snakes. 2004. 2.5/5.

This is actually a better outing from Glen than his previous effort, but it still just has those flat spots where it feels as though nothing is happening.

The album begins well, and actually reminds me a lot of his early Danzig stuff. Songs such as Skin Carver and Circle Of Snakes are good tunes. Then, the drabness appears. In the past, Glen's drab songs have still been very listenable, because he has made them so. Now however, it appears that he just slaps them together and expects magic to leak from them. Skull Forrest really irks me in that way.

Later in the album, 1000 Devil's Reign and HellMask bring you back to attention, but then the album closes slowly again. By the time you get to the end, you have lost interest in it well beforehand. And that's a shame, because Danzig's uniqueness really had some freshness to it in the early to mid 90's. Now it appears to be seeping away.

Rating : Showed some promise, but failed to live up to it. 2.5/5.

131. Danzig / Black Aria. 1992. 0/5.

Well, this is mood music. I really don't know what Glenn was trying to do with this, I must admit. Perhaps I should research it a bit, because it has nothing. It is like the soundtrack to a particularly drab movie. No lyrics, just like elevator music, or the stuff they play on ABC FM sometimes. Anyway...

Rating : It doesn't deserve anything, so... 0/5.

17. Danzig / 777 – I Luciferi. 2002. 2/5.

This album, for me, was a HUGE disappointment when I first got it, and it has been one I have been somewhat apprehensive about pulling out again for fear of hating it more.
So, putting it on this evening, I made sure I went into it with an open mind, and not pre-judging it.
I listened all the way through, allowing it to play uninterrupted.
At the end, I came to this conclusion – it is just a wall of noise, with not a lot of anything going for it. OK, sure, there are a few catchy bits from the middle of the album until the end, but in all reality, I really am not sure at all what Glenn was trying to achieve with this. To me, he had really run out of ideas, and didn't know whether to go backwards, forwards, or tread water.

Rating : It's not so bad that it deserves nothing, but it didn't inspire me to delve into it again in the near future. 2/5.

14. Danzig / 666 – Satan's Child. 1999. 3/5

The band that Glenn Danzig had put together after the dissolution of the group that played on the band’s first four albums had waded into stormy waters when it came to the rapture that was occurring in the music scene in the back half of the 1990’s decade. Grunge had given way to alternative metal, and then into the even more psychoanalysed industrial metal sound that had found its footings at this time. The band first dipped their toes into this lake with the follow up to that fourth album, titled “Danzig 5: Blackacidevil”, an album whose whole sound structure had gone through a processing plant and come out the other end like a mangled car having gone through the crusher at the old car’s home. Granted, there are people out there that enjoyed this album, and those people are generally dressed in strait jackets and locked in padded rooms. There was a deal of experimentation that went on during that album that certainly divided the opinions of the fan base.
Following this, the band moved around again, with Jeff Chambers on guest guitars and Josh Lazie on bass guitar coming on board to join Danzig who again contributed guitars to the album and returning drummer Joey Castillo. In regard to the recording of the album, Glenn was quoted in an interview with Metal maniacs in December 1999, "This record is the first time I've ever recorded my vocals digitally. I recorded with a mic and in a booth, but through a computer, and that's how the overdubs were done on this record as well. What I tried to do with this record is take all my favourite elements from Danzig 1 through 5, and the Thrall EP, put it all together and add a couple of new flavours."
Most fans would have been excited about this development. The best of everything that had come before this combined?! It had “winner” written all over it! The end result of course is open to the individuals opinion. And of course, given that it was the band’s sixth album, the temptation was too great not to use 666 as the opening to the title, in this case even captioning it like a bible verse as 6:66, and of course then as a preface to the remainder of the album title, Satan’s Child.

In many ways, this album tries to right a wrong while still suggesting what they were doing is the right course of action. It's almost like a child admitting they had done something wrong to their parents, and yet continuing to go down the track of those actions without guilt. I mean, the album does try from the outset to rectify what could be seen as the overcompensation of “Blackacidevil” away from what many considered to be Danzig’s core sound, and yet in the same instant continuing down the path through the industrial metal genre anyway.
“Five Finger Crawl” opens with an energy that brings hope to the heart from the outset, though the effects used on Glenn’s vocals does tend to grate until you become used to it. Already however the feeling of the album is a better fit than almost everything that came from the previous album. This is followed by “Belly of the Beast” that does morph the old Danzig sound with the new industrial version, combining a solid rhythm underneath Glenn’s more energetic vocal, and a guitar slot that mimics the genres tones perfectly. “Lilin” tries too hard to follow the path of an industrialised Alice in Chains song and is bombarded by the ugly sounding tin snare in parts of the track that pre-dates the abomination of Lars Ulrich’s drum snare sound on the “St Anger” album. It is a song of two parts, the awful snare sounding piece, and then the remainder of the track which has the bones to produce a half decent doom metal inspired track.
“Unspeakable” raises the tempo and energy to create something that sound very good but also leaving the feeling that it is unfnished, that it needed just a bit more polish to lift it to being an excellent song. This is followed by “Cult Without a Name” that does a similar job of segueing between the fast paced heavy song to the lilting doom introspectiveness, all within the best phases of the Danzig tradition. The natural segue into "East Indian Devil (Kali's Song)" about the goddess Kali does come with its less savoury aspects, the return of the effects on Glenn’s vocals and which does become a messy mashing of a song. “Firemass” has a similar meshing of eastern sounds as well, and while not a complete mess like the previous song still fails to find its place in the way the album has been recorded.
“Cold Eternal” returns to the mystical wailing under almost non-existent instrumental backing, which is overwhelmed by the hard riffing follow up, the title track “Satan’s Child”. The music on this track drowns out the course of “Cold Eternal”, but also is tainted slightly by the less wonderful wailing of Glenn through the chorus. The song is fine but with Glenn’s vocals now heading in a less powerful fashion it comes off as a slight disappointment. “Into the Mouth of Abandonement” is a combination of the previous two tracks, moving from quietly spoken lyrics and that snare rim to loud over the top riff and vocals mixed in together. This does facilitate the lyrics of the song with intent, but again it sounds unfinished, unpolished, requiring something more to really get the most out of the song. You can pretty much read the same for “Apokolips”, though the sifter pieces are louder and more pronouced before the explosion into the hard and heavy riffing and vocals.
The album concludes with “Thirteen”, a song that Glenn was invited to write for Johnny Cash and whose acoustic version appeared on his 1994 album “American Recordings”. Danzig’s version for this album is in the heavy blues style, and also appeared as the opening to the movie “The Hangover” and closes out the album with a surprising amount gravitas due to the haunting vocal form Glenn and easy perfect guitar and drums to complete the song.

The utter abrasiveness of “Blackacidevil” when I first heard it on release was pretty much enough for me to ditch Danzig forever. My distaste for that album was brought on by the significant change of direction the band took at that time, and given my own tastes were not heading in that direction, I felt at the time that I wouldn’t need to head down that path again. However, I had a change of heart about six months after this album was released, when I decided I really needed to give the band another opportunity, if only for the pretty colours on the album cover. So, I secured a copy of the album from that scourge of the internet, Napster, and had several listens at that time. And that first impression of the album was... ‘well, it's better than the last album...’... and then it was filed. And probably the only times I have listened to it since was when each new Danzig album came out, and I would listen to it to compare to that new release.
I recently did an episode for this podcast with my partner in crime Steve Holz where we reviewed and ranked all of the Danzig albums from our least favourite to favourite, and so again listened to the album several times. And now for this episode I have had the album on for the past 2-3 weeks. And I think it is fair to say that in that time period of the past few months, I have come to enjoy the album more than I did when I first heard it 24 years ago. Now that may well be because I am less picky about music at my advanced age, or that I am more capable of forgiving some flaws from artists I appreciate. And Danzig is certainly one of those bands. My main thoughts on listening to the album again are that there are passages of songs on this album that I really like, but also within those same songs there are passages that I think harm the song overall. And for me that is probably my main gripe with this album. It is very mixed musically and certainly vocally. Glenn is changing his style from what he had in the classic bands era, and some of it is okay but some of it is not. And the vocal effects and snare rim tin sound and overall guitar is just not up to par. Perhaps if it was re-recorded without that stuff, and having Tommy Victor on guitar rather than Glenn himself, then maybe this would be a better listen. Maybe.