1298. W.A.S.P. / Still Not Black Enough. 1995. 3/5

From the band’s inception through to 1990, and the tour to promote the release of their fourth studio album “The Headless Children”, W.A.S.P. had been on an inexorable rise in the heavy metal scene. Four excellent albums and one live album had seen their profile rise across the world and their stage shows had created an enthusiasm and a horror at turning up to one of their shows. The rise in tensions within the band, especially between band leader Blackie Lawless and guitar hero Chris Holmes had seen Holmes quit the band, and eventually following the conclusion of the tour the band broke up.
In its place, Lawless went about creating a solo album, a writing and recording process that took over two years to complete. A concept based around a rather autobiographical character named Johnathon Steel, the album came to be called “The Crimson Idol”. However, his plans to release it as a solo album were thwarted by his record company and promotors, who insisted that it should be released under the band name W.A.S.P. Lawless eventually acceded to their wishes, and the album and following tour enjoyed great reviews and sales. This did not save the band as such, with the end of the tour once again seeing Lawless retreat on his own, and begin to compose his next album, which, once again, he was determined to release as a solo artist.
This time however, although the sounds and themes were familiar, there was to be no hiding behind a fictitious character, or to create a story that took elements that he knew and experienced and create a story around them. For this follow up album, the words coming out onto the page were of Blackie’s own stark and sometimes desolate emotions. Whereas “The Crimson Idol” had been deliberately written as a rock opera, a story that utilised fictional characters to represent the story that he had wanted to tell, his follow up to that, a solo album, was Blackie Lawless speaking from the heart, about things he had known and experienced, and hiding behind no mask. He also added some cover songs, as he had done in the past of W.A.S.P. albums, to fill out his album. Once again, though, despite his desire to release this as a solo album, his record company convinced him that it needed to be released under the W.A.S.P. name in order to be able to promote it. Unlike “The Crimson Idol” though, this was not an album with a purpose, it was a letter to his fans describing his inner turmoil, not designed to be an album released by a band. And thus, with the release of “Still Not Black Enough”, the one member of W.A.S.P. and his paid assistants brought out an album that seemed to promise something that it was not – a fully fledged album by the band.

Still Not Black Enough can be seen to be a collection of dark, introspective tunes that extended the Crimson Idol mythology, this time with Blackie speaking directly to his audience about his own feelings. As we will discuss, this album lacks the cohesiveness of its predecessor even as the lyrics explored similar topics to Crimson Idol: being an outcast and misfit, the pressures of fame and society, and the search for love. This album has several different track listings and also tracks, with each version being different from the other, so rather than trying to combine all of those into one review, I will be going off my CD version of the album and reviewing it in that order.
The title track “Still Not Black Enough” is straight away the same style lyrically and musically as “The Crimson Idol”, so much so that it really is almost a cut and paste or colour by numbers reimagining of any numbers of songs from the album. And look, Blackie wrote that album and he wrote this album, so he can perform however he wants. But even the drumming and drum rolls in the song mimic what has come three years earlier on that album. It’s a bit disconcerting from the outset. Blackie offers us lyrics that also reference the darker side of his conceptual magnum opus such as “I can't go on till I get off, for me it's still not black enough, with darkness gone, my fear is seen, my fear is real, my fear is me”. Yes, this is Blackie talking and not Jonathan, but as we all know they are mostly one and the same, and so is this song. “Skinwalker” follows another similar structure musically as Blackie walks us through the torment of his mind, questioning his sanity and how he can fight his way out of the darkness and find his way back to normality. “Black Forever” has Blackie further expunging his fears and doubt and regret, making everything black forever, but wanting to hold it inside and keep it there forever.
The first real change up musically comes from “Scared to Death”, an excellent mid-tempo hard rocking track with a great riff chugging through the main part of the track as Blackie once again spews froth with his fears and the contents of his blackened soul. Bob Kulick offers a great solo through the middle of the song, but the fact that the album has moved beyond its Crimson Idol melodies is what makes this song far more accessible on this album. It doesn’t last for long though, as the similarities return on “Goodbye America”. We have spoken word passages at the start and in the breakdown in the middle, and then Blackie preaching to us about how his country is broken. It reveals more about Blackie’s political ties than it does anything else, and as a poor man’s “Chainsaw Charlie” it doesn’t quite live up to what has come before this. It then, perhaps strangely, is followed up by a cover of the popular 60’s track “Somebody to Love” which was popularised by Jefferson Airplane. Is it a statement from Blackie on what he has been singing about to this point of the album? Is he looking for somebody to love, or vice versa? The cover is fine, but it asks more questions than it answers. This again is followed by the next step with the ballad “Keep Holding On”, acoustically based and with harmony vocals from Blackie himself. Now W.A.S.P. and Blackie know how to do power ballads, and they have some beauties in the past. But this one comes across half-arsed and just there for the sake of throwing in a ballad on the back of the emotional outpouring he has been making lyrically on this album.
There’s a bit of a bounce now though, as “Rock and Roll to Death” channels not only 60’s rock and roll but an old school W.A.S.P version of it, and adds that lyrically as well. It brings a bit of sanity back into the mix here and a feel for traditional W.A.S.P. into the album. It is short-lived though, because then we are accosted by a second power ballad, this one called “Breathe”, which is attempting to channel “Hold on to Your Heart” from the previous related concept album. Again though, it is the poor cousin of that. It lacks the emotive yet powerful element that that particular song enshrines. And if that isn’t enough, then we have the further recycling of musical passages and riff and drum beats to create “I Can’t”. And I get that by now you are probably wondering whether or not I am amplifying the purported similarities of the songs on this album to the previous album, and that I am perhaps being harsh in that comparison. But it really is inevitable when you listen to the album, you cannot help but hear that this is just an offshoot of that album. “No Way Out of Here” does make a much better mix of those characteristics, once again pulling together the themes of this album with the colours of red and black again being brought into play to describe Blackie’s state of mind. “One Tribe” closes out the main part of the album with Blackie crying out for love, whether it is on a personal basis or a part of his whole world.
Following this are two more cover songs which do not appear to be connected to the emotional outpouring that Blackie has done on this album, but are surely just because he loves the songs and the artists. The versions here of Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down” and AC/DC’s “Whole Lotta Rosie” are faithful and you can hear the joy as Blackie plays them, and is a good way to finish off the album.

Given that this album came out in what for me was the black hole year of 1995, I didn’t actually pick this album up until the early months of 1996 once my life had settled down a little again. I had bought the greatest hits CD called “First Blood, Last Cuts” that had kept me company through most of that preceding year, so that when I saw this in Utopia Records when I walked in one day it was very exciting. W.A.S.P. had grown into one of my favourite bands, especially on the back of both “The Headless Children” and then “The Crimson Idol”, so seeing “Still Not Black Enough” meant for me more of the same. Surely! It is fair to say that this album was not what I expected, but looking back from this long length of time I don’t know why I didn’t expect it. As you have heard, this album is almost a direct continuation of “The Crimson Idol” both musically and lyrically. It could almost be a sister as such. But what it truly lacks is that fable story, the one with the start and the finish, and with the songs written to tell that story chronologically. Here Blackie expels his heart into song, but this is now his story and not a characters story, and that gives a point of difference to the way this album plays out. And for me, at that time, having been through a year where emotionally I had been completely wrung out, I probably wasn’t in the best headspace to get the most out of this album at that time.
So don’t get me wrong, I listened to this album the usual required amount that you do when you buy a new album, and eventually came to the conclusion that if it came to a choice between listening to this album or “The Crimson Idol”, then the latter would win hands down every time, and that was the direction I followed.
Over the preceding years this has been played sporadically. I have never not enjoyed it, but again when it comes to W.A.S.P. there are any number of other albums that I would prefer to listen to when it came to me wanting to listen to something from that band. The most recent time before the past week was a few months ago when I was a guest on Uncle Steve’s Mega Maiden Zone and we waffled on for three hours on a W.A.S.P. retrospective that was very enjoyable to do.
And so we come to this week, and my CD has come out again, and I have had a lot of fun reliving the album again on multiple occasions. And I still consider this to be a Blackie Lawless solo album, just under the W.A.S.P. moniker. And I think if you accept it as that you’ll find you can get more out of it, because you aren’t searching for things that just aren’t there. If you allow yourself to compare it to the previous album you will walk away disappointed. If you give it a chance, you will find some songs here that are worth your while checking out. And it does rank low on my list of W.A.S.P. albums. Of the 15 studio albums the band has released I rank this at #14.
Not for the first time this could have been the end for W.A.S.P. and yet once again they were pulled from the flames at the last instance, or perhaps it was the phoenix rising from the ashes. Because the return of the prodigal son set up the phase the band’s career, and set them on a musical course that was as at the furthest reaches of the spectrum that you could possibly imagine over their next three releases... but that’s a story for another episode...

1183. W.A.S.P. / Live... in the Raw! [Live]. 1987. 4.5/5

It had been a wild ride for the band W.A.S.P. over the course of their five year existence at the point of time that this live album was released. Three landmark albums, chart selling singles, and increasing controversy over their stage antics, as well as having been targeted by the movement dubbed the PMRC, had given the band great publicity and a growing legion of fans.
It was on the tour to promote their third album “Inside the Electric Circus” that the idea came up to record the shows and release a live album from them. An initial recording in London at Hammersmith encouraged the band to do a serious run through once they arrived back in the US. Two nights were recorded in California in March 1987 at the end of the tour, when the band should have been at its best and the songs at their tightest. Which in many ways was the case, but there were also the other touring problems that crept into the recordings.
Tensions within the band were rife as they came to the conclusion of the tour, and throughout the time when this album was recorded. At times drummer Steve Riley and bass guitarist Johnny Rod had to be dragged apart, and fisticuffs ensued on a regular basis. It is interesting that in the linear notes for the remastered version of this album, Blackie Lawless actually suggests that Steve Riley was the one who was under pressure, because he had always had to try and live up to the band’s original drummer, Tony Richards, and that he couldn’t do that. Now, I’ve always thought Riley was a great drummer, which he also proved when he either quit or was sacked by Blackie following this tour, and he went on to join L.A Guns as they released their debut album. To be honest, there always appeared to be tension in W.A.S.P. whether they were on a successful roll or not, but it is interesting that there should have been problems within the band at this time, a time when change did seem to be coming, both in the band and in the style of music they had produced prior to this point in time.

As a representative live tribute to their first three albums, this album covers most of the bases. To be fair it would have been a difficult job in which to whittle down the songs choices available for a touring setlist, let alone then choosing which songs to use on the live album produced from it. In the end the band left out four songs from the shows that were recorded - “Sex Drive”, “Animal - Fuck Like a Beast”, “Widowmaker”, and “Shoot it from the Hip”, although all but “Animal” eventually made their way on to the remastered CD version of the album some years later as bonus tracks.
The coverage of the albums was fairly evenly spread, and contained most of the great hits from the band. “L.O.V.E Machine” and “I Wanna Be Somebody” were the big singles from their eponymous debut and are still live favourites to this day. “Sleeping in the Fire is still an underrated track, and one that also plays out beautifully live. “Wild Child” was the big single from the second album “The Last Command” and is another that still sits in the live set in the present day, and is joined by the other great single from that album “Blind in Texas”. And the best of the “Inside the Electric Circus” album on which the band was touring at the time is featured here too, with the opening title track, “9.5.N.A.S.T.Y” and the wonderful cover version of “I Don’t Need No Doctor”.
What makes this live album unique is that it has two songs specially written for this tour, songs that had not been recorded on a studio release before the tour, and in fact never received the studio treatment. Which means that the only place you can hear the songs “The Manimal” and “Harder Faster” is on this live album. And some people might find that to be unfortunate, but I’ve always enjoyed this fact. Both are your atypical W.A.S.P. songs of the era, and are good fun in the bargain. And, on top of that, make it essential to buy this album if you want to have the entire W.A.S.P. collection of songs, so that probably doesn’t hurt either. Topping it off is the addition of the song “Scream Until You Like It”, the theme songs for the movie “Ghoulies II”. The band didn’t write the song, it was written by those involved in the soundtrack for the movie, but the boys certainly make it their own in the recording process.

In my first year of University in 1988, I used to spend my five hour break between lectures on a Wednesday in town, strolling through the record stores. My favourite was Illawarra Books & Records, where there was plenty of used vinyl on offer at a price that a poor student could almost afford. On one magical day during the first semester, I walked into this shop, and found all three of WA.S.P’s first albums, along with this album, all sitting there, waiting for me to purchase them. And I did. 20 bucks for the lot, worth more back then than it is now, but still so much cheaper than they should have been. And I played them all to death, blunting the needle on my stereo in my bedroom several times. And they all got the same amount of listening, often back to back to back.
I always loved this back in the day, and I still do now in the present. It has a great vibe around it, and it still gives off the energy that I imagine the band did in those live shows of the day. More importantly, there is no backtracking or dubs to be heard, what you hear is what you get, which is not quite true of the band in the modern day. And it is still an interesting piece, because it is surprising how much work goes in to those early W.A.S.P. studio albums, and in some ways how difficult it is to represent them well in the live environment – especially in the vocals. But everything here is good, and it is an enjoyable album to listen to. And as a historical record of the first phase of the W.A.S.P. story it acts as a suitable conclusion. W.A.S.P’s sound began to mature in a different direction following this album, and the band itself blurred in many realities following this. But that’s a story for another day.

1119. W.A.S.P. / Unholy Terror. 2001. 4/5

The band W.A.S.P. had had a lot of ups and downs in the decade leading up to the recording of this album. Blackie Lawless remained the only original member of the band to survive throughout the 1990’s, with guitarist and hero to the masses Chris Holmes having first left the band after The Headless Children album, and then having returned following advances from Blackie to do so in 1995, which led to two albums being recorded with the dynamic duo intact in K.F.D. and Helldorado. Both were albums with a completely different focus, with K.F.D. having been a very serious and hardline album, focusing on a more serious nature and a more dour approach to the music and lyrics, while Helldorado had been a return to the early W.A.S.P. form with fun-loving sexual innuendo mixed with high tempo fast paced hard rocking tracks.Then followed a period of two years between 1999 and 2001 where this album was formulated written and then recorded, and by Blackie’s own words was a painful process, as he proclaims most writing periods are for him. The fact that he had taken on the role as sole writer of the songs probably didn’t help this, but it was also the way he was taking the band as a whole.
In the liner notes of the album, Blackie goes into detail on what he was thinking during the writing and recording of this album, and a lot of it lines up with the direction he was heading both spiritually and in his life and career. Having been brought up in a strict religious environment he had more or less shrugged that off in his adulthood – but here he appears to be in conflict with his beliefs, and this time and album appears to be where he was tipping back towards becoming the born again Christian he eventually became. It isn’t as if the whole album is in that direction, but lyrically Blackie seems to be struggling with the concept. He does write that there was much of his upbringing that he was uncomfortable with, the idea that good always triumphed over evil. This rings true in songs such as “Unholy Terror” and “Charisma”, which deal with the madmen of the past two thousand years, and “Loco-motive Man” which is about the gunmen who go into schools and start shooting innocent victims, Blackie’s belief it is all being about their need to be seen and to gain attention to themselves. The senselessness of these things is what is explored in these songs, and Blackie seems to be searching for answers, ones that theoretically he returned to religion to find.

Beyond the deepening thoughts that Blackie delved into to create the material for this album, the songs themselves stand up well, and any fan of W.A.S.P.’s work will find plenty here to enjoy. Apart from a couple of exceptions, the tracks are the high octane hard rock that W.A.S.P. built its reputation on, uncompromising and fast and furious through to the conclusion. Blackie again handles vocals and guitar duties throughout, Mike Duda returns on bass guitar and supporting vocals, while Frankie Banali and Stet Howland again share drumming duties on different songs throughout the album. As always, Stet’s double kick is prominent and a redeeming feature in the songs he was asked to perform on.
Where there is conjecture is over the contribution of long time W.A.S.P. guitaring legend Chris Holmes himself. Holmes himself still insists he didn't play one note on the album despite being on the liner notes. And listening to the album, this is quite obvious. Because the songs lack his presence to lift this above the standard that it is at. There are no memorable solos or slick licks like you expect from these kinds of songs. Don’t get me wrong, I still love them, but you do notice the absence of his trademark guitar.

This was the maturing of W.A.S.P. the band, and Blackie’s changing persona was probably a huge part of that. But the band had been together for some time now, and the sound that they produce had been drummed in to them like everything else about it. It was regimented, it has formulated, and it works. The music continues to be great. Aside from the Chris Holmes factor, the rhythm guitars always do the job, while the bass and drums stick together like glue. Like all of W.A.S.P throughout their history, the hardest part has been in making the vocals work in a live environment. Here in the studio, Blackie gets them sounding perfect, the harmonies and everything to do with the vocals sound brilliant. It never works as well live because the vocals are so layered on the albums, and he isn’t capable of producing the same on stage even given Duda’s efforts in support.

This album for me is highly underrated, because it is so difficult to compare it to the two previous releases. Here, the balance was restored for me. The music is brilliant, the subject matter of the songs worthy and enjoyable. You could sing these songs without cringing at the over seriousness of the subject matter or shaking your head at the silliness of it. The opening three songs are killer W.A.S.P. songs - “Let it Roar” hot off the plate, “Hate to Love Me’ hard hitting and catchy, and “Loco-Motive Man” straight out of that late 80’s W.A.S.P brilliance. And it really is here that you notice Chris isn’t playing, because his signature is nowhere to be heard, which would have only lifted these songs even higher with brilliance. “Unholy Terror” is the first of the slow acoustic driven tracks, and the sister track “Charisma” works fine as the segue. “Who Slayed Baby Jane” is classic W.A.S.P, and “Ravenheart” is of a similar ilk, but is wedged between the quiet instrumental “Euphoria” and then “Evermore”, where it is obvious that Blackie is trying to recreate the next “Forever Free” – now, you’ve already done “Forever Free”. It’s been done Blackie, don’t try and let history repeat. The rampant closing track “Wasted White Boys” is a beauty, with Roy Z laying waste to the song with a ripping closing guitar solo. He is only listed as playing the solo on this and “Who Slayed Baby Jane”, but given Chris’s information, I imagine that enlisting Roy to make a few additions to a few of the other songs would have also been handy.

When this album first came out I just loved it. Apart from the songs “Unholy Terror”, “Euphoria” and probably “Evermore”, I loved the energy of what had been produced. I loved the way that the different parts of the band’s past had been tinkered and ironed and then brought out on this collection. Yes, the disappointment that Chris Holmes was gone from the band forever was a disappointment, but it still sat in my CD player for that 3-4 months period that the good new albums did. As it turns out, even though I have enjoyed most of the albums the band has released after this, it was probably the last time I felt REALLY good about a new W.A.S.P. album.

Rating: "No love for killer babies, my pain is written on your walls" 4/5

1107. W.A.S.P. / The Last Command. 1985. 5/5

Their debut album is right up there with one of my favourites of all time, and when I was really becoming obsessed with the band at the end of high school and into university, it was that album and this one that I had on high rotation. The release of The Headless Children pushed this into the stratosphere but until that time these first two albums were what took up a lot of my listening hours. And while on the surface it is easy to say that W.A.S.P. has better albums out there than The Last Command that would be to ignore the time when it was released and how it fit into the metal scene as it was at the time.

I absolutely loved this album when I first got it, and for a while rated it as better than the debut album such was the constant rotation I gave it. Eventually I came to realise that the genuine anthemic qualities of the previous album on songs such as “I Wanna Be Somebody”, “Hellion”, “On Your Knees” and “L.O.V.E Machine” outrank those on this album, but if you judge the songs on consistency over both albums then The Last Command could possibly still win by a nose.

You aren’t coming into these early W.A.S.P. albums for the lyrics, though Blackie eventually became more intense when it came to this part of the artform. The lyrics all through are fun and still fun to sing even for those of us now well entrenched in middle age. The chanting choruses that encourage you to sing along are the winners here, especially when tooling around town in the car. None of it is highbrow stuff but as a teenager it was all fun and games.
“Wild Child” is the out-and-out hit of the album, and opens it up in style. More melodic than headbusting it still carries itself well after all these years. It could have signalled a much different direction for the album as a whole if the lads had carried on in the same vein, but the follow up of “Ballcrusher”, “Fistful of Diamonds” and “Jack Action” all restore the general vibe of loud and violent themes and music to the fore.
“Widowmaker” is one of the best on the album, mostly because it is still a heavy song but has a different atmosphere from the other tracks. It is not melodic musically like “Wild Child” but has a chorus of melody vocal lines throughout that introduce a variation in theme on the album, much like “Sleeping in the Fire” did on the first album. As the change up song on the album it is particularly effective. “Cried in the Night” tries to do a similar thing but although it is still a great song it isn’t as effective as “Widowmaker” is in this instance.
“Blind in Texas” was one of the singles from the album, and is very much the quintessential W.A.S.P. track form this era. Belligerent, loud and lyrically simple and to the point, this drunken anthem leaves nothing to the imagination. It’s hard and heavy with a great guitar riff and is everything that W.A.S.P stood for in the mid-1980's.
The title track “The Last Command” stood for me as my own anthem for a number of years during this time, the at-times angry and confused teenager trying to find his place in the world, and happy to use this song as my flagbearer. Even today I can put it on and remember how I felt when I would play this over and over again, and how it lifted me up, in the same way as “Department of Youth” and “Youth Gone Wild” used to. “Running Wild in the Streets” used to speak to my youth at the time as well and is still a favourite, while the album closer “Sex Drive” is again so typical of the W.A.S.P standard that even though it might sound laughable almost 35 years later it is still one I can – and do – sing all the words to.

Looking at this album in 2019 – a year that I could not even conceive of when I first bought this album – it has certain flaws that are easy to hear and point out. One even wonders how many of these songs Blackie would now deem to play live in concert given his born again Christian status (answer – very very few). It is an album of its time, filled with sexual and violent innuendo that was frowned upon at the time, and would probably just be tut-tutted now by parents for its childishness than its themes. But beyond all of that, when I put it on my stereo and turn the volume up to eleven, this is still for me a brilliant album. I probably don’t love it as much as I did back in my youth, but it still helps me remember how I felt about the album back then. W.A.S.P. was a juggernaut, and this line up of Blackie Lawless, Chris Holmes, Steve Riley and Randy Piper is arguably their greatest. Maybe kids coming into it today would not find as much in it to enjoy, but with so much emotional baggage tied up in it for me it is one I will always love.

Best songs: “Wild Child”, “Widowmaker”, “Blind in Texas”, “The Last Command”, “Jack Action”.

Rating:  “Hear the call we are the Last Command”.  5/5

1034. W.A.S.P. / ReIdolized (The Soundtrack to The Crimson Idol). 2018. 4/5

I guess there are any number of reasons you can come up with for wanting to re-record an album from your back catalogue, especially one that is as dear to the hearts of fans as The Crimson Idol is. I imagine in this case that the main reason for Blackie revisiting what some believe is his magnum opus is that he wanted to bring it closer to his original concept, to add in the things he left out the first time, and to change some things that he was no longer comfortable with. Whether it is a great or foolish idea will be in the eye of the beholder, if for no other reason that the original album was so popular, did it really require any touching up?

The original 1992 album is one of my favourite albums of all time. There is a real angst and anger delivered throughout the album and storyline, and the musicianship, especially in the drumming of both Frankie Banali and Stet Howland is incomparable and in Bob Kulick’s guitar riffs and licks. Almost every song is a winner in its own way and at that time of my life it spoke to me in a way that the grunge-soaked rock that was proliferating the music world then couldn’t do.
As to this re-recorded version, well… in many instances it doesn’t have the same effect as the original did. Don’t get me wrong, the great songs are still great. The opening from “The Titanic Overture” and “The Invisible Boy” to “Arena of Pleasure” and “Chainsaw Charlie” are still terrific, but they do not have the same anger and defiance and angst in the vocals and the music that the originals did. They aren’t stonewashed as such, but they are less powerful. The current line-up of Blackie, Doug Blair, Mike Duda and Mike Dupke do a good job of recreating each song, trying to get the same nuances and not messing about too much with the song structure, but it isn’t the same. Blackie tries to give us a few harmonies in the vocals which work for the most part. There are six ‘new’ tracks added to the album, which for actually mess up the whole feel of the story and disrupt the continuity of the music. I cannot get used to not flowing straight from “The Gypsy Meets the Boy” into “Doctor Rockter” which has always been a great pick up. Instead, we have the quiet reflective “Michael’s Song” and “Miss You” which was also added on the previous album Golgotha. Then, once we had the power ballads of “The Idol” and “Hold on to My Heart” we would crash into the epic closer “The Great Misconceptions of Me”. Here though we have four further additions. The clear guitar driven “Hey Mama” is followed by “The Lost Boy”, which very much sounds like a post-2001 era W.A.S.P. song, and for me feels out of place because it does come from a different time period of the band. “The Peace” just feels like it’s a repeat of “Hold on to My Heart” (of course with different lyrics telling a different part of the story) and “Show Time” another short addition. All of this for me stops the story and album in its tracks, and takes away some of the enjoyment. For those who are not familiar with the original this shouldn’t be an issue.
There is also the noticeable elimination of language from the album. The changing of words in the middle of “Chainsaw Charlie” makes it a little awkward to listen to on this album. It tends to detract from the power of the middle of the song, where the real charge of the album comes from. There is also the exchange between Jonathon and Alex Rodman pre-“The Idol” which has the harsher words changed for less demonstrative ones. This isn’t a big thing, and was no doubt an obvious move given Blackie’s changing belief system in recent years, but for me it takes away a part of the energy and drama of the album. On the positive side, I can at least allow my ten year old son to listen to this version of the story without fear of him listening to words he probably shouldn’t at his age (but given he is a fan of W.A.S.P. he has heard them all anyway).

Blackie had his reasons for taking on this project again, and for making the changes he did. That’s fine, and if it introduces new kids and new fans to this great album then it is more than worth it. Those that listen to this without the looming large shadow of the original hanging over it will be pleasantly surprised by a wonderful rock opera filled with awesome heavy metal tracks mixed with some slower ballad tracks that for the most part combine together well. Everything sounds great here and is in its right place. The Crimson Idol is still one of my favourite albums ever, and in being seen to judge this somewhat harshly it is only because I have such fondness for the original production.

Rating:  “But the dream became my nightmare, no one could hear me scream”.  4/5

 

952. W.A.S.P. / K.F.D. 1997. 3.5/5

To say this is a different style of album from W.A.S.P. is an understatement. On the first three albums we had plenty of crazy fun, tongue-in-cheek metal played loud and hard with lyrics that ranged from the tended sexual innuendo to political and worldly rights and wrongs. They were great. The follow up was a mature sounding evolution that still combined topics in the lyrical department but with a heavy and progressive sound that hinted at a band that knew where it was going. Following some line-up turmoil came the great rock opera, one that was hailed for its conception and presentation. More band turmoil followed, and the predecessor to this album was lost in direction as much as the writer and performer appeared lost in his own life and career.

My main problem with K.F.D. is not necessarily the change in the musical direction, but that it sounds like there is just a wall of noise coming out at you for the majority of the time. Yes, it has been brought to my attention that this is pretty much an industrial metal album, which is a completely different direction from what previous W.A.S.P. albums have offered us in the past. As a result, most of the songs sound like variations of each other, thus depriving them of their individuality. Sure, it sounds heavy and comes across that way, with guitars turned up to eleven and just raged upon, while Blackie screams over the top, or at least through the middle somewhere. Don't be fooled though, some of these songs are great without that technique having to be used.
There could be a fair case made that Blackie and Chris had anger issues when they were writing this album. There's no holding back here, and their pointed rage is spewed out through the songs all the way through. The opening track and title track "Kill Fuck Die" leaves you in no doubt from the beginning that it is coming at you. This is followed by "Take the Addiction" that continues in that framed, with distorted guitar and Blackie's vocals at your throat. "My Tortured Eyes" sounds like a beefed up version of "The Gypsy and the Boy" from the rock opera, a bit more electric than that of course.
"Killahead" however is a ripper, one from the top shelf of W.A.S.P. songs with its full on pace and rage, but especially in this case because the instruments can be picked out from one another, rather that just becoming one huge ball of crazy. Lyrically it's not one of the most deep and meaningful. It is the one you put on at a party when the alcohol has taken effect and you need to start slamming. "Kill Your Pretty Face" starts off like a couple of numbers here, with the quiet clear guitar and Blackie's high voiced sighing, before building into that wall of noise and screaming coming through that wall. The technique is effective, but I must admit that it's a momentum killer for me, just because the album itself had been building, and then it gets stopped by this track in a couple of ways. It finishes up okay, but not enough to withdraw my annoyance at it.
The short trappings of "Fetus" moves into "Little Death" where a little more rage comes into the mix. Certainly Stet Howland's drumming is a non-stop cacophony throughout this song. Is there any point where he comes to a rest? "U" wanders between the reflective and the anger management course that is built upon by almost every song here. Strangely enough though, "Wicked Love" is almost the most conventional W.A.S.P. song on the album, and yet comes across as perhaps one of the weakest. No, I don't know how that happened either. The final track "The Horror" builds from the quiet to the distraught, but in the end comes across as a slightly manic and disturbed version of the closing track from the rock opera, "The Great Misconceptions of Me". From it's quiet and almost deathly silent beginning, the build up of distortion continues until we have the final conclusion up near the stratosphere.

When this was released I had pretty much given up on W.A.S.P. as a band. After the previous album (that really should have been labelled as a solo release for Blackie) I felt the end had come. In a way I guess it had. The direction and style of this album was completely different from what had come before, and it would not be repeated in the future. Though there are some good songs here, and the album as a whole can be enjoyed when placed in the CD player, it grows tired quickly on repeat hearings unless you an appreciate the style it is recorded in.

Rating:   "I'm the horror on the edge".  3.5/5

778. W.A.S.P. / W.A.S.P. 1984. 5/5

The story of the formation of W.A.S.P. is a long and winding one that mirrors many bands of the era. The four members who came to form the first recording formation of the band and this debut eponymous album had weaved around in different bands for years before finally coming together to create this original foursome that recorded the album. Drummer Tony Richards had played in various bands through the 1970’s, and eventually found his way onto the drumstool of a band called Dante Fox. For two years alongside bass guitarist Don Costa, Mark Kendall and Jack Russell, Dante Fox played all of the big clubs in the Hollywood and LA scene. In 1982, Richards left the band, and along with Costa joined another fledgling band being put together called W.A.S.P., while Dante Fox with Kendall and Russell would eventually morph into the more widely known Great White.
Guitarist Chris Holmes had played with Los Angeles bands Buster Savage, LAX, and Slave, and even had a short stint in a band called Sister. It was his connection with this band that eventually saw him come to hear about a new band called W.A.S.P. and be invited to join. Randy Piper was also a guitarist, and he also played for a time in the band Sister, where he became one of the revolving in and out players of the band. A couple of years later, he got a call from former Sister bandmate, Blackie Lawless, who said he was putting together a new band called Circus Circus, and asked him to join him on guitar. It proved to be another short lived project, leaving Piper out in the cold once again. But he too then came to hear about a band called W.A.S.P. which would be a turning point once again.
And so we come to Steven Duren, better known to all as Blackie Lawless. He too played in a dozen bands through the 1970’s and into the new decade. Black Rabbit. Orfax Rainbow. New York Dolls. Killer Kane. Just some of those short term gigs he took on. Then came the band Sister, that not had Nikki Sixx in its ranks but Randy Piper, and a connection was made. Then a guitarist named Chris Holmes appeared for a short time before leaving due to differences in opinion. Sister didn't last, and Blackie formed a new band called Circus Circus, and called upon Randy Piper again to be a part of the group. Again, as with most of the bands mentioned so far in this episode, the band fell apart. Blackie then was a part of the band London, formed by Nikki Sixx after the demise of Sister, but who had now moved on to form Motley Crue. Blackie played bass in London, but soon moved on once again.
Now – FINALLY some of you may be thinking – came the formation of the band that was to be called W.A.S.P. Blackie had himself and his frequent bandmate Randy Piper as guitarists. He then recruited Tony Richards on drums and Rik Fox on bass. Fix however didn’t last too long, and so Richards suggested his former bandmate in Dante Fox, Don Costa for the role. Costa joined but was soon also out the door. It was then than Blackie remembered another former bandmate and made a phone call to Chris Holmes. In interviews since, Holmes has said that he refused at first, because he didn’t want to be in a glam rock band like they had played together in with Sister. Blackie assured him it would not be that kind of band, and that he would be able to dress and play exactly how he wanted. Holmes eventually agreed to join, and to accommodate him, Blackie again went back to play bass guitar as well as sing lead vocals. Thus was created the first true line up of the band W.A.S.P., and it was time for the legend to be born with the self-titled eponymous debut album, “W.A.S.P.”

Debut albums can sometimes be difficult, especially when it comes to ‘discussions’ between the band and the record company. Initially the band wanted to have the album named “Winged Assassins”, something that some fans still refer to it as today and was printed on the spine of original release vinyl albums in Europe. Beyond this, the real controversy prior to the album coming out was the song “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)”. This song was due to appear on the album as the lead off track, and as the first single from the album. However, there were a lot of problems getting that off the ground. Under enormous pressure from groups such as the infamous PMRC, and the threat that the album would not be made available for sale in the big US department store, which was a huge thing in those days, Capitol Records withdrew the song from the album and refused to release it as a single. It did get a release in the UK through Music for Nations, and, surprisingly enough, was hugely sought after as an import in the US. Eventually in 1998 when the back catalogue was remastered, “Animal” was returned to the album as the opening track. However, for us traditionalists, in our minds it does not appear on the debut album.
Instead, the album opens with the excellent “I Wanna Be Somebody”, crashing out of the speakers with drums and guitar and Blackie’s vocals in your face from the start. It is a terrifically raucous opening song, no preamble, just straight into the album and showcasing the great elements of the band from the outset. This is followed by the song that surely gained further popularity through its music video when it was released, “L.O.V.E Machine”. What immediately sets it and this album apart is Blackie sticking with his hard-core vocals, but wonderful swatches of him singing over just the bass and drums which creates a different atmosphere from the swashbuckling opening song. On top of that is Chris Holmes terrific guitar solo, but the singalong lyrics also make this song a beauty.
Into the hum of the album, and the next three songs lay the solid foundations that the rest of the album can build on. "The Flame" speaks of living life to the full, "B.A.D." Deals with Blackie’s parent issues and "School Daze" reveals the teen’s torture of those days in the concrete jungle of youth. Musically they are all enjoyable, they all still enjoy the same flow on from the opening tracks while creating the musical structure and melding into the style that the album is generating.
The next trio of songs, right in the heart of the album, are the ones that hold the key to the success of the album and confirm the successful elements of why this band found the success that came beyond this, and the multitude of bands these four had been in prior to this did not.
"Hellion" is just a sensational song, so full of energy and passion, it explodes through any lag time you may have begun to feel, and sweeps you back into the energy and passion of the album. Again it is the drums and guitar intro that drags you in, Blackie’s vocal scream, and bang, straight into the song once again. Awesome singalong lyrics again, anthemic in style, and an absolute classic. Will never have to die.
This is followed by the biggest surprise on the album, the still magnificent "Sleeping (in the Fire)". Here is a song that shouldn't work. It's basically a power ballad, moving somewhat slightly left of centre of the rest of the album... and yet... it just works brilliantly. It soars along with Blackie's great emoting vocals and Chris's electrifying guitar solo. If it hadn't been done well it could have been a laughing stock, something that sucked away the excellence of the album to this point. But as it turns out, it only enhances it, and not only showcases the ability of this band to diversify but to stay true to their core music direction at the same time. One of the great W.A.S.P. songs. Then comes the fired up "On Your Knees", another of those great high energy songs that blazes through the speakers, enticing you to sing along as it drives along. Repetitive? Perhaps. But the music overturns that.
"Tormentor" and "The Torture Never Stops" are both solid tracks that tend to express Blackie’s frustrations lyrically with parts of his life, and are good songs without reaching the quality of those that have preceded them, and close out the album in style.

The success of this album is driven by many factors. The brilliant sing-along choruses for a start, they are terrifically written in order to bring the fans into the songs. The excellent driving drumwork from Tony Richards, which I think is completely underrated - it doesn't just complement the songs here, it actually enhances them and helps to bring them to life. The magnificent twin guitar attack of Chris Holmes and Randy Piper, playing off each other and creating a ripping guitar album. And of course Blackie Lawless, whose crazy energetic vocal performance tops off all of these factors to bring home a scintillating first release.
W.A.S.P. was a band I quickly became infatuated with when I first discovered them, and this album had a lot to do with that. I was a bit of a late comer to the band given my delayed entry into the world of heavy metal music. In mid-1986, that wonderful weekend of the Channel 10 late night music video show called... “Music Video” where they dedicated the weekend to just metal videos - an unheard of event - saw me watch and record the majority of those two nights, I came to discover a lot of bands that it may have taken me years to find out about. On those nights I got my first look and listen to songs such as "I Wanna Be Somebody" and "L.O.V.E. Machine", and something clicked in me, and I knew I needed to seek out this band and their music. The big hair, the razorblades, all four just looking like they were having the time of their lives. I loved both of those songs and the videos.
I still remember the day I first got this on vinyl, at one of my favourite second hand record haunts, the oft-named Illawarra Books and Records in Wollongong. In fact, on that day I picked up all of the band’s first three albums along with the “Live... In the Raw” album. It was an exciting day. I remember getting home and putting it on my parents' stereo for the first time, the crackling of needle on vinyl, before those drums came hammering out of the speakers at 200 decibels, launching into "I Wanna Be Somebody" for the first time. Time to get that Blackie Lawless head wobble on while playing air-bass! Then it faded in to more drums starting us off into "L.O.V.E. Machine", along with another great chorus to sing along to. Two terrific songs to start the album off on the right note. I was hooked. To all four albums. My W.A.S.P. obsession began for real on that day, one that remains to this day.
For this podcast, I have had this album in my rotation for a month. Over and over. Not so loud at work, very loud at home. I have table drummed, air guitared, and sung all of this album all the way through. It still sounds amazing after all these years. Fine, some of the lyrics are questionable, but the passion and attitude of the music in particular cannot be questioned. It transcended the era it was made, because while the band was more or less cast in with the glam metal genre, mostly because of where they had come from, W.A.S.P. is a true heavy metal band, and proved why as many other bands fell by the wayside over the years as they continue to fight their way through the obstacles.
For their first five albums, up until the first 'break-up" of the band, W.A.S.P. was one of my all time favourite bands. Their sound and songs dominated the end of my teenage years and into my twenties, and this album still resonates with me 40 years after its release.

564. W.A.S.P. / Inside the Electric Circus. 1986. 4/5

Like another "third" album I've just reviewed (Gamma Ray's Insanity and Genius) this is a mixed bag and a little uneven, with some classic songs and others that are not forgettable, but slightly unmemorable.

Probably a little strangely, there are two cover songs on this album - Ray Charles' "I Don't Need No Doctor", the version here which is just brilliant, and has become one of W.A.S.P's greatest hits. The riff throughout is spectacular, and they have made this their own in the same way as Judas Priest did with "Diamonds and Rust". The other cover is Uriah Heep's "Easy Living" which is also one of the better songs on the album. It is just a little funny that having put together two great albums of original material, the band (sorry - Blackie) felt it necessary to put two cover songs in here to 'pad it out'. Had they/he run out of ideas? No matter - it works, and they are great, and it wouldn't be the last cover tune on a W.A.S.P. album.

There is plenty to like here. The title track “Inside the Electric Circus” is a great opener. “Restless Gypsy” and "I'm Alive" are both great songs that follows the W.A.S.P. doctrine. And while songs like “9.5.-N.A.S.T.Y” and “Shoot From the Hip” and “Sweet Cheetah” and “Mantronic” are good songs, they are all very similar musically and even lyrically. With the exception of “I'm Alive” and "Easy Living", the second half of the album (second side if you owned this on vinyl like I did back in the day) is almost like one long song. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but at times it becomes monotonous.

In the long run, either because the album is good on its own merits, or because I have owned and listened to it for so many years I don’t count the flaws against it, I still love this album. It is the poor cousin as such of the two preceding and two following studio albums, but it still holds a place in my heart.

481. W.A.S.P. / Helldorado. 1999. 3/5

While the 1990’s had not exactly worked out the way that W.A.S.P. the band, or at the very least band leader Blackie Lawless would have hoped for, they had had their moments, and at least as they approached the new millennium the signs were that the band was trending upwards.
The previous album, “KFD”, released in 1997, and the episode on which you can find in Season 2 of this podcast, had seen both the return of several members to the group after Blackie had gone rogue for the “Still Not Black Enough” album, and spirits had lifted in the fan base. “KFD” itself though saw an interesting change in the sound for the band, an almost total abandonment of the fun times, hair metal shock rock band that had existed prior to this, and saw an infusion of alternative and almost industrial metal in places that may well have been the defining genre of metal at the time but one that did seem as though it had strayed too far from the formula that had made W.A.S.P. the band they were, and how they had garnered their success and fan base. Despite this, the live album that was recorded on this tour, “Double Live Assassins” was received very well, and showed that those songs in the lie environment were still very strong.
Blackie’s response to the views of “KFD” from critics and fans alike was that, in retrospect, he may have gone too far down a path that was not familiar to the fan base, and that for the next album the band would look to retrieve some of that ground by moving the band back to more traditional ground. A lot of fans took that news in great glee, perhaps anticipating an album that could combine the energy and drive of the first three albums, hopefully incorporated with the maturity of the following two albums. That of course would appear to be a practically impossible task. What the band produced instead was an album that took the essence of much of the perspective of those first three albums, and tried to recreate and transpose that onto an album some 15 years after the event. The result perhaps spoke more of the struggle within the band leader’s demons than anything else in the music, and in retrospect may have been a turning point for his future music ambitions.

From the very start of the album, it is obvious that the songs on this album are directly tied to the style and formation of the bands first three albums. Because let’s face it, “Drive By”, the opening sequence on the album, is just a throwback to the opening of the “Inside the Electric Circus” album with the preamble to get the album off to a start. Then, much like the segue into the title track of “Inside the Electric Circus”, the segue here into the title track “Helldorado” jump starts the album. It is catchy in the same way old W.A.S.P. was, with Blackie’s vocals at the top of his register screaming out of the speakers at you, the music is bright and breezy, and Chris Holmes unleashes with a trademark solo. It’s a great start, with the hope of more to come. This could be seen to be a bit presumptuous.
“Don’t Cry (Just Suck)” is pretty much exactly what you would expect from the title lyrically, the kind of juvenile nonsensical song that doesn’t have any innuendo which would make it slightly more charming like old school W.A.S.P. Instead, it's just a song that makes you wonder exactly what Blackie was going for when he began to write this album. It was out of place in 1999, let alone on playback 25 years later. This is followed by “Damnation Angels”, which feels like Blackie is trying to come to terms with his abandonment of religion and just where he’s heading in the future. This is back to a much more mature sounding W.A.S.P. with the tempo dialled back, a great solo from Chris and Blackie almost pontificating from the pulpit. It’s simple and lyrically repetitive but still enjoyable in its own way.
However, the arrival of “Dirty Balls” is from the same production line as “Don’t Cry (Just Suck)”, a song that has no pretensions about what the subject matter is. Again, no innuendo, the lyrics are straight up what the title suggests it is about, and to be honest it just feels childish. It is literally impossible to enjoy these two tracks in particular. I honestly couldn’t bring myself to sing these kinds of songs at the age of 16 or 21 let alone 29 when this came out, or 54 now. Childish immature crap, with a lack of anything that makes the song enjoyable. Honestly, what created this decision in Blackie’s head that firstly, this was a good subject matter to fall back into after so many years, and secondly, that THIS is what the fans were looking for?! But more on that later.
“High on the Flames” goes down the same path as “Damnation Angels”, once again lyrically repetitive and focusing on Blackie’s ongoing battle with having left religion behind, and the consequences of that, and perhaps speaks more of his creeping ever slowly back to where it all began for him in his childhood. “Cocaine Cowboys” again addresses exactly what the song title suggests, with the solid musical backing and Blackie’s top range chorused vocals and Chris’s solid riff making this song a more enjoyable experience. “Can’t Die Tonight” feels like a reprise of “Blind in Texas” but in the modern “KFD” style serious tone rather than the fun time joy that the classic original song provided on “The Last Command”. “Saturday Night Cockfight”. Really? I mean, Elton John nailed the “Saturday Night’s All Right for Fighting” theme 50 years ago. And here, Blackie has just gone with a song title that again shows no ingenuity, no innuendo in the lyrics (which are sparse anyway), and just espouses exactly what you would expect from a song with this kind of title. The song has a fast tempo, a solid solo again by Chris, who does seem to be playing without much enthusiastic thought on his solo pieces, and that’s the song.
The album concludes with the bookended “Hot Rods to Hell (Helldorado Reprise)”, which basically channels the opening track, changes a bit of the composition and stylised verse and chorus, and offers us almost the same song to go out of the album. Sure, it’s clever enough, but does it hold together an album full of songs that have gone down two distinct ideals? It is essentially the same song but rejigged.

As I’m sure I have mentioned on other W.A.S.P. related episode of this podcast, I became a fan of the band almost from the first moment I heard their first album. I couldn’t really say what it was about them, but the music grabbed me, and the look was interesting. Blackie’s vocals and enthusiasm in everything he did was electric, and Chris Holmes’s guitaring was fabulous. And I didn’t fail to get each album as it was released in the first week, such was my desire to hear what they were going to offer up next. So, I most definitely had this album when it was first released, and I was excited to hear what it contained.
How has that enthusiasm survived? There is no doubt that “Helldorado” is a completely different beast from “KFD”. The opening track is enough to convince you of that. And I still don’t mind that opening. But from that point on, it’s a real mishmash of ideas. The songs themselves have an obvious influence of AC/DC in the basic rhythm structure of all the tracks, and even into Chris’s guitar solos. Maybe it isn’t obvious from the first listen, but on multiple spins that similarity to the AC/DC style is patently there. A somewhat frenzied one, yes, but there all the same. And the lyrical content is basically sold towards the outlandish acts of sex and desire, or the punishments of sinning. And without knowing exactly what Blackie’s thoughts were in writing the words to the songs for this album (as he is the sole credited writer on this album), it does feel as though there is a conflict going on. The desire to put out an album that musically and sonically was closer in origin to those initial releases than what they had performed on their previous album is there for all to hear. But within those songs come lyrics that either extend beyond the ability to shock to a point of ... in my opinion, just bad taste and unnecessary vulgarity, or reflect back to the basis of his long-disposed of faith and the promises of hell for those that ... indulge in exactly those things he has written and sung about. It feels like there is a war in Blackie’s head over just what he believes and what direction he wants to go. This may be completely incorrect, but given that just a few short years later he became a born-again Christian, and tended to shy away from the songs highlighted here, perhaps this was where he started having that conflict, and here on “Helldorado” he decided to express that conflict in the lyrics.
So when I first got the album, I listened to it a bit, enjoyed it some days and less so on others, and it eventually passed back onto the CD shelves. And when it has come out over the years, it has generally been for only one listen as a catch up before returning to its housing.
The past three weeks is the most I’ve listened to the album since I bought it, and my enthusiasm hasn’t changed. The characteristics of the early albums, with Blackie’s screaming vocals over the top almost without a break, are fine. It does remind you of those times, but the QUALITY of the songs is nowhere near the same. The songs here are almost passionless, whereas those early albums had passion in bucket loads. Do I enjoy it? Honestly, if I ignore the lyrics in half the songs, and just listen to the album in a dispassionate way, I still find moments to enjoy.
But, here’s kicker. Blackie wanted to go back to the band’s roots, to move away from the style of “KFD” because he felt the fans were unhappy with the direction the band had been trending towards. But with “Helldorado”, he dialled it back too far. They over corrected what may be seen as the overly serious nature of the subject matter of the previous album, and came up with this album. Bring back the tempo and vibe of those early albums, and bring back a less serious tone in the lyrics and music? Absolutely, bring that on. But this took the basis of the early sound of W.A.S.P. and tried to reinvent the wheel when it didn't need it.
There are some above average songs here, but overall it makes too many mistakes to be entirely enjoyable. It was the final album that Chris Holmes actively participated in, and with it effectively consigning W.A.S.P. to a Blackie Lawless solo band. There are some solid albums that came out over the next two decades, and while “Helldorado” overall is a flawed attempt at a reset, perhaps it was the album the band needed as it rode on in to the next century.

474. W.A.S.P. / The Headless Children. 1989. 5/5.

Throughout the decade of the 1980’s, W.A.S.P. had been building. Starting out as the offshoot of a couple of different bands, they had come together to release three studio albums of varied response, built on the back of their outrageous stage shows where, for want of a better word, carnage would often be the result. Overt sexual themes and use of chainsaws for fun made the band one that drew in fans of a certain breed and made them converts to the style of heavy metal the band had begun to produce.
The three albums themselves had been somewhat of a revelation. The debut self-titled album had brought with it a frenetic energy that captured exactly what the band was producing live, with songs that covered the extremes both lyrically and musically. Their second album “The Last Command” had toned down a touch and settled into a great rhythm, while the band's third album “Inside the Electric Circus” comes across like a mixed metaphor in places, with great tracks and perhaps some average ones thrown into the mix. Then came the live album “Live... In the Raw”, an album that put a pin in the band’s first era, showcasing the best of their material in the live environment, and in many ways running a line underneath that time.
Over 2.5 years separated studio albums for W.A.S.P. which given their live and touring popularity seemed a long time for the era. There had been a revolving door in regards to the drummer position in the band following Steve Riley’s departure for L.A. Guns, with several people having been tried out on the stool. As the band slowly inched their way into the studio again to record their follow up to “Inside the Electric Circus”, they procured former Quiet Riot member Frankie Banali to come on board to record the album, though at this stage only as a guest musician and not a full member of the band.
Entering the studio, it was Blackie Lawless who took up much of the writing of the songs for the album, somewhat shunning the partnership he had enjoyed with guitarist Chris Holmes on earlier albums. The result was a turning point for W.A.S.P., with songs that came in a more mature fashion and with much more serious and world-wise lyrics than had been the case on previous albums. Such was the course set for “The Headless Children”, an album that became a high water mark in the career of W.A.S.P. the band.

The differences that have come with this fourth album are noticeable immediately from the opening strains of “The Heretic (The Lost Child)”. Indeed, this song is such an amazing turn from what had preceded it on the first three albums that it is sometime hard to believe there wasn’t another album in between that acted as the missing link. What the band has done on this album is difficult to explain in the correct terms, because it is truly amazing. For a start, it is fast, and it is heavy, and the emotional anger comes across in Blackie vocals from the outset. With lyrics such as: “And soldiers keep coming - like warriors they die, but gang land's alive when mothers cry. Cause hate's blind addictions, a killing machine, and it burns on the fuel of shattered lives” Blackie is not leaving anything unsaid. Then as he rages through the middle of the song, “Rise and see, it's the down of insanity, keeper of the gates of fire. And the Heretic has said ‘You don't have to be afraid, until I - until I come to get ya’” it picks up more intensity. That raging guitar solo that enters the final chorus still sends shivers down my spine listening to it, and then the second solo that plays out to the end of the track. W.A.S.P. has many amazing opening songs on their albums, but none better than this. It sets the mood for the whole album going forward, and from the very outset shows that this is not to be anything like what the band has produced before.
This is followed by the perfect punctuation of the cover version of The Who song, “The Real Me”, but completely W.A.S.P.ified. Blackie takes centre stage and fires his vocals through the speakers with the passion of a man who is in love with this song – which he is, and of the band The Who. W.A.S.P. was in the habit of putting cover songs on their albums, and they were all generally excellent versions, and this is no different.
The darker tones of the music, especially in the brilliant title track, are part of that journey. Lyrics shooting from the hip on political warmongering and the resulting images that come from it. Blackie’s struggle with what his own concept of God was at the time comes to the fore in lines such as “Father come save us from this madness we're under, God of creation are we blind? Cause some here are slaves that worship guns that spit thunder, the children that you've made have lost the minds”. Having taken hold of this ship in regards to the songwriting and therefore the direction, Blackie has shown a penchant for a much more serious look at the world as a whole. Whether this came from a desire to be taken more seriously as an artist or songwriter or a person, who can tell. But it certainly succeeds through “The Headless Children”. The main riff throughout is an instant headbanger, played perfectly and driven even harder by Blackie’s vocal delivery. Just a great song.
“Thunderhead” follows and is belligerently hard and direct in describing a drug addicts' woes, and the battle between the addict and the drug itself. The lyrics here continue to show a much more serious side to the band’s thought processes on this album, and again is perfectly played and presented in that theme.

Side two opens with the masterpiece “Mean Man”. This is classic and brutal W.A.S.P., the song written by Blackie about his bandmate and comrade, guitarist Chris Holmes. The exact kind of tribute that Holmes deserves, with barrelling lyrics and rollicking guitar riffs and solos, this is the exact kind of maturing in the songwriting that fans would have wanted, with the core of the band’s sound from years past dialled up a notch, and yet with great lyrics that are more thoughtful and appropriate. And yes, it is ironic that Holmes left the band within six months of this album being released, and that a spate of words went public between the two – but this is still a great song and a great tribute.
“The Neutron Bomber” follows, another great song whipped up by great singalong vocals guitar riff again. Some people at the time that the mention of the name Ronnie meant that this song was about former US President Ronald Reagan, which in one interview Blackie had actually said was the subject of the lyrics. However, the more likely scenario is the one that Blackie suggested in a different interview, that it was about a serial arsonist called Ronnie that he knew growing up. Certainly, the lyrics focus more on that scenario than the first.
In fact, the most unusual songs on the album are the acoustic instrumental “Mephisto Waltz” that then leads into “Forever Free”, the power ballad that takes a completely different course from every other song on the album. Now it's not as though W.A.S.P. are incapable of doing a power ballad. “Sleeping in the Fire” from their self-titled debut album is a stomping song, one of the best power ballads ever in my opinion, in the very small category of songs ranked ‘good power ballads’. And Blackie produced a couple of very solid ones on the band’s next studio album. But this is a standout because it is such a change from the road this album had travelled with every other track. But while it is a power ballad, it has enough moments of greater force and guitar riffs that make it rise above the other applicants of this genre. I sing along still every time I listen to this album.
The album closes in a fit of fury with “Maneater” and “Rebel in the F.D.G”, which the linear notes explain stands for Fucking Decadent Generation. Both of these songs are more of a throwback to the songs from the first two albums, carefree with the lyrics, fast tempo with great guitars and sing along lyrics to boot. It’s almost like Blackie saying ‘yes this album is different, but we can still do those old style songs’. Fun, fast and energetic, with more Chris Holmes soloing to take us out with a bang. “Maneater” has Blackie again channelling his motorcycle roots, while “Rebel in the F.D.G” has him expanding and expounding on his callow youth. It tops off what is an amazing album in the best possible way.

The maturity of this album is frankly astounding. The band has gone from singing about girls and sex and school days, to making direct commentary and statements on the way they see the world around them at that time. Or, more precisely, the way Blackie sees it. And that should not be confused. As stated earlier, Blackie wrote this album, or at least all of the lyrics himself. So this is his change from the band’s initial position in music genre and status, and it really makes its mark. It’s a long way from “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” and “L.O.V.E Machine” to “The Headless Children” and “The Heretic (The Lost Child)”. It’s an amazing transformation – lyrically from those types of topics to the ones generally addressed here on this album, and musically becoming a heavier and darker album throughout. W.A.S.P. is not mucking around here, they aren’t playing games. This is an intelligent and hard hitting album that steps it up in almost every way possible from their first three studio albums.
In the late 1980’s I had my flirtation with a university degree, and in the process just made myself miserable. In 1988 I had become almost irretrievably obsessed with W.A.S.P. and had picked up those first three albums and the live album on vinyl at my favourite second hand record store in Wollongong, and played them ad nauseum through that year. Then this album was released, just a couple of months before the termination of that uni career. I bought this album on vinyl within the first couple of weeks of its release... and went bat shit crazy with love. I was depressed and angry, and my word this album just amplified that, and at the same time drew that frustration out of me with the joy it gave me. And I still love those early W.A.S.P. albums, but this is just another level.
Everything about this album is as close to if not perfect as it can be. Frankie Banali’s drumming is superb here, creating the platform for each song with its power and timing, and yet subtlely staying in the quiet corner when needed. Johnny Rod, on what would be his final album with the band, has some terrific moments, especially within “The Real Me” and “Thunderhead” where he is especially present, and his contribution to backing vocals is terrific. Chris Holmes on lead guitar again steals much of the show for me. It is difficult to explain how important his guitar is to the W.A.S.P. sound, until you hear the albums where he is not a part of the band. He dominates again on this album and provides some of the best moments with his soloing out the final moments of those tracks. And Blackie Lawless is almost at the top of his tree, especially his vocals on this album. You really do feel what Blackie is singing about on this album, his frustration and anger and desire to preach to the masses.
This album was the star attraction for 1989. To me it is still a masterpiece. It became one of 3 or 4 albums that was my soundtrack for that year, and I never tire of listening to it. Indeed, this has been back on my playlist for 6 weeks leading up to this episode. I put it on my playlist EARLY, just because I wanted to. And I have listened to it a lot, and listened to it loud. It is a gem, one of those great albums that most W.A.S.P. fans would agree with, and yet it still seems almost hidden from most of the metal community who only know the first two albums and then the one that followed this album. I hope that for everyone who happens to listen to this episode of my podcast, it changes your world. It changed mine 35 years ago.
And yet, it signified the end of the great era of the band. Chris Holmes left in August 1989, citing that he wanted to do stuff he liked, while Blackie kicked him on the way out suggesting he was being pulled by his apron strings, a harsh reference to his then partner Lita Ford. Johnny Rod also found the door, and the band actually ceased to exist for a while, until Blackie decided he was ready to get going again, but perhaps as a solo artist. That of course is a story for another day... or an episode of this podcast that has already been recorded... search it out if you aren’t sure of what I am talking about.

383. W.A.S.P. / First Blood... Last Cuts. 1994. 4.5/5

It’s a funny thing when you look back on – in the mid-1990’s, W.A.S.P. had released five brilliant albums and a live album. However, problems were an obvious concern for the band, and it appeared that it was going to be all over. Blackie Lawless would no doubt continue, but rumours abounded that it would be in a solo capacity.
Here then came First Blood… Last Cuts, a greatest hits compilation that had a couple of unreleased tracks thrown in, like any good record company will do to entice the buying of an album when the fans already have all the songs on it. The problem with that is that it stopped the album having a few more ‘greatest’ tracks on it! As an enormous fan of the band, especially up until this point of its career, there are so many deserving songs that have missed out here. Of course, that is because it is a single disc release, but when I went through all the songs I thought SHOULD have made it, I surprised myself with how many great songs they have.

On the other side of that, this is a great place to start if you are just trying to get into the band. You can probably give the last three songs on the album a miss, but the rest is gold. They are dripping with everything that makes W.A.S.P (of this vintage) such a great band. Raw and intense, no backward step, no apology.

Rating: Only loses points for the final three tracks, which are unnecessary. Other tracks could have been included. 4.5/5

358. W.A.S.P. / Dominator. 2007. 3.5/5

Ooooh, if ever a band, or a man, had to work his bollocks off to regain lost support after some dodgy recent years, it was Blackie Lawless and W.A.S.P. Following the critically acclaimed 9/11 themed Dying For The World with the flawed and basically just dreadful rock-opera that was The Neon God Parts I and II, Blackie was a million miles from the sound he had produced that shocked the world back in the 1980's.

I can confirm that Dominator repairs as much of the damage as it possibly can. For the most part Blackie has gone back to the basic formula with his music. Like everything he has released since The Crimson Idol however, it all has the same sort of melody lines and bridges. This isn't a problem unless you allow it to be. His usual ballad (on this occasion “Heaven's Hung In Black”) sounds just like his others have on previous albums of the past 15 years. The majority of the album returns W.A.S.P. to the standing of albums such as Unholy Terror and Dying For The World, a solid release with solid songs. Strangely, the energy Blackie usually exudes seems to be missing for the most part here. Perhaps he is now in a place in his life where his influences on his music from past decades now escapes him.

Favourites for me include “Mercy”, “Long Long Way To Go”, “The Burning Man”, “Heaven's Blessed” and “Deal With The Devil”.

Rating: A return to a much more enjoyable setting. 3.5 / 5.

343. W.A.S.P. / The Crimson Idol. 1992. 5/5.

When it came to stable line-ups, W.A.S.P. had not really been able to work down that path. Most of that appears to be related to band leader Blackie Lawless and his iron grip over what the band did, and according to several former band mates, the way he held the purse strings. That of course has been the way of bands in music throughout the history of recorded music, but with W.A.S.P. and their level of success, coming from the early 1980’s hair metal to become a much heavier version of that genre of metal, and utilising their shock value on stage in much the way that Alice Cooper did in the early stages of their career, the changes between albums came a member at a time. In 1989 the band released “The Headless Children”, a more mature and thoughtful album in both music and lyrics than the band had produced before. The three singles highlighted this, with the ball tearing metal track “Mean Man”, the hard rocking cover of The Who’s “The Real Me”, and the hard rock ballad of “Forever Free” showcasing the range the band had in their songwriting. However, halfway through the tour founding guitarist Chris Holmes left the band, citing a need to have fun as his parting shot. In return Blackie accused him of being pulled on his apron strings by his new wife Lita Ford. It would be six years before they worked together again. The end result was that W.A.S.P. was disbanded. In its place, Blackie eventually began working on a solo album, one that he wrote from the heart, using pieces and passages of his life to create what would basically be a rock opera concept album. He created the character Jonathan Steel who would be the central role in this story, and his life story from being isolated from his parents, to running away from home to chase stardom as a musician, to his dodgy manager and discovering drugs and alcohol, to reaching the stardom that he had been striving for, to the inevitable fall.
The album took shape, but as Blackie composed this for his own release, the pressure from the record company came to have it released as a W.A.S.P. album, the monetary value of that name foremost in their minds. Eventually Blackie caved, and the W.A.S.P. name was attached to the release, though he was the only member of the band still remaining. He recorded guitars and bass himself, along with Bob Kulick on board to help, while drumming duties were shared between Frankie Banali and Stet Howland. And 30 years ago, it was released, to await the verdict of the listening public.

Just because an album is a concept album, it doesn’t mean you have to know the story or follow the story to enjoy the songs and music, and that very much fits here as well. This being a rock opera though, it does have spoken pieces between songs that flesh out the story, but they don’t detract from the album if you aren’t interested in them. Once again though, in a similar way to “The Headless Children”, the album contains a variety of style of tracks, in this case however to help tell the story rather than be something that changes up the album. The heavier and faster tracks dominate the first half of the album as Jonathan leaves his home, finds his way in the music world and the trappings that are a part of it. In the second half of the album, when he begins to reflect on his choices that road they have led him down we have the more melancholy of the tracks, reflecting the pain and anguish he is feeling as a result.
The opening and closing tracks have all the hallmarks of the rock opera, and each does its job in opening and closing the circle of the story. “The Titanic Overture” is exactly that, opening the show and setting the scene with the overture instrumental it is. This, along with the following three songs, are a brilliant opening to the album. “The Invisible Boy”, “Arena of Pleasure” and “Chainsaw Charlie (Murders in the New Morgue)” are fantastic tracks, combining everything that is so good about W.A.S.P. while fitting the timespace as it is needed. Bob Kulick’s guitaring is superb, really hitting every nuance, great soloing and still being able to express the emotion of the track as it fits the developing story. Great stuff. The drumming of Stet Howland in particular is impressive. His double kick rifling through these songs gives it an added dimension. And Blackie’s vocals are superb, instilling the harmony and chorus pieces where they are needed, and expressing the characters different feelings to piece together the players in the drama. When you add “Doctor Rockter” and “I Am One” to this, you have five exceptional fast paced heavy metal tracks that are a tribute to the band’s great legacy.
Then you have the slower paced, more melancholy tracks that tell that side of the tale, including “The Gypsy Meets the Boy”, “The Idol” and “Hold on to My Heart”. In any other setting on any other album these would be the kind of songs that I would most probably be bagging out, but here, as a part of the tapestry that is the story of “The Crimson Idol”, they are a necessary evil, and emotionally are as important to the story and album as those first four songs are. Singularly, on their own, do they hold up? My answer is yes, but I have listened to this album a LOT over the last thirty years, and as such have a lot of love ties up in the album, which makes it hard for me to be constructively critical of them. They all sound great. If I heard them away from the context of the album, having never heard them before, I may well find ways of deriding them, but not because they are poor or crap, but because... I don’t often like ballads. Anyway... the closing track that closed the circle and the story is the 10 minute conclusion of “The Great Misconceptions of Me”, where the final scene plays out. It builds terrifically from the reflective to the crescendo to follow the finale of the show and album, and it is a fitting way for the album to come to an end.
Like I said earlier, it isn’t necessary to have digested the story being told to enjoy the album, but because of the enjoyment of the album, the story reveals itself to you anyway as you listen to the album. Jonathan, his brother, his father, his manager Alex Rodman, the record executive ‘Chainsaw’ Charlie, the drug dealer Doctor Rockter... all of them become known to you through the fabric of the songs. So whether you care about the story or not, sooner or later you’ll know it anyway.

I don’t recall the day I bought this album, but it must have been pretty close to the day of its release, because I do recall six weeks later going to see Sepultura in concert and having this blaring in the car and singing it at the top of my voice on the way to the gig. It grabbed me from the start, in a way few albums in my life have. It was, perhaps not surprisingly, the same way I felt the first time I listened to Queensryche’s “Operation: Mindcrime”. I don’t know why. It isn’t as though the story for me is or was a hugely intricate piece of either album, at least not in the beginning. But those opening four tracks are just immense, almost mid blowing when you first put the album on your stereo and crank it up. I had doubts about the new album because Chris Holmes had gone, but I needn’t have been worried in that respect, as Bob Kulick is superb here, as he always was on whatever project he played on. This album became somewhat of an obsession for me, and it was still on my active playlist 18 months later. There was always the lingering hope that W.A.S.P. would tour Australia and gives us a taste of this an all of their albums, but that wasn't to be in those days where we were seen as a backwater too far to travel to. It wasn’t until 16 years later in 2008 that the band finally made it to Australia, on the 15th anniversary tour of this album, on which they played this in its entirety and then an encore of five other ‘classic’ tracks. I travelled to Sydney on my own to watch the spectacle, one that I drove home from in disappointment. OK, so it was not a concert as such, it was a half-arsed rock opera, with the movie they had filmed to be a part of the production going on behind the band as they played. But there was so much pre-recorded vocals and backing tracks that there were periods when you couldn’t tell whether it was the band playing or whether it was just the backing tracks. At times when Blackie was heard singing, he was facing the drummer. I admired the fact they tried to make it like the rock opera it was, but it seemed a cheapened version of it. I’d have preferred to just have the band play and nothing else. And that was the catch. To spend the big money on making it a true rock opera production, or to just perform as the band. They went somewhere in the middle and didn’t pull it off. In my opinion.

255. W.A.S.P. / Dying For The World. 2002. 4/5.

W.A.S.P.’s previous album “Unholy Terror” had been an exercise in balancing the song writing and the styles they had been composed in over their previous three or four albums, in order to regain a perspective of what the band was hoping to achieve. You can hear the episode dedicated to that album on Season 1 of this podcast. Blackie has been quoted in several arenas as saying that each album is a snapshot of what he was feeling emotionally and in his life at the time it was written, which he used to explain the differences in each album since the band’s early releases. It also helps to try and explain how “Dying for the World” came to be created, and the emotions that lay behind it.
September 11, 2001 needs little explanation, nor to explain why people's emotions sometimes ran off the rails following the event. W.A.S.P. was on tour in the United States when the events of the day occurred, and so close enough to have the full horror play out in front of them. For Blackie Lawless, a native of New York City, seeing the planes fly into the World Trade Centers became a life-defining event. There were plenty of triggers there, but it seems as though the most prevalent was rage. And he used that to his advantage when it came to his song writing. In the linear notes on the album, Blackie tells the story of how during the first Gulf War, he received thousands of letters (remember those?) from men and women in the armed forces, who related how they would blast heavy metal songs at their enemy when they were about to launch an assault, so that they would know they were coming. Early WA.S.P. songs were a part of that. And so, his thoughts as transcribed in those linear notes in regards to this album were as follows:
“...why not give our guys a fresh batch of new songs to go into battle with. Something that will inspire us and scare the fuck out of them. Think of this album largely as a collection of songs to ‘go kill people with’. Fuck political correctness. That went down with the Trade Centers. As the line says in the song “Stone Cold Killers” “my god will kill your god”.
Whether or not that is the kind of thing he should be spouting on the inner sleeve of an album is open to question, but it gives you a firm view of exactly what was running through his mind when he was composing the songs for this album.

This sounds like a W.A.S.P. album from the moment you put it on, which allays any fears that it may have diverged again as other albums have. And as has already been established, there is a lot of emotion in the lyrics on the album which then directs the way the music is written for each track. The tracks that are inspired or driven by the events of 9/11 are where the majority of the album comes from, and thus are the impetus of “Dying for the World”. The opening track “Shadow Man” becomes the first song that references black hearts within its lyrics, a recurring theme for Blackie in describing those who would perpetrate such an act, but does it also describe himself and his anger at those people? Blackie says that “My Wicked Heart” is sort of a prayer asking for forgiveness for his anger, before he goes ahead and expels it. “Hell for Eternity” is a spraying of anger and hatred, that is actually quite restrained in its recording. I can imagine Blackie writing this and screaming it at the walls. Ditto for “Revengeance” and “Stone Cold Killers”. These are simply just songs about releasing the pure vitriol that built up in Blackie’s heart.
However, is has to be said that this album for what it is worth also must have been therapeutic, and outlet for Blackie to get out all of his anger and frustration. The song “Hallowed Ground” resulted from Blackie visiting Ground Zero at the World Trade Centers a few weeks after the incident. The emotions he felt on that day were then transferred to this song once he returned home, composing it that evening. And the song respects those feelings he had after that visit. It is interesting however, that in the linear notes Blackie goes on to say - “After that song my emotions of reverence soon turned to full blown anger. “Shadow Man”, “Hell for Eternity”, “Stone Cold Killers” are the reflections of that. If “Hallowed Ground” was my wake, then the big payback was “Revengence”. I think that one title says it all”.
Interestingly enough, not all of the anger or songs on “Dying for the World” centre on 9/11, which actually gives the album more relevance than if they had. The song “Trail of Tears” was inspired by Blackie listening to The Beatles album “Revolver” over and over, but lyrically was inspired by the enslaving of the native American Indian nations by the US. Because of his Native American heritage, here was the second part of his life that he drew inspiration from to compose for this album, and his anger over the senseless loss of life over the displacement of these people something he was still reflecting on at the time. And “Black Bone Torso” touches on the continuing revelations about who he calls the child molesters (priests) in the Catholic Church. Given his religious upbringing, something he had strayed from but was on the way towards re-embracing, this was the third part of the life that contributed to the conflict on this album and in Blackie Lawless himself.

This was a rite of passage for Blackie, who wrote all of the album in his own words. And the songs are strong because of the conviction behind them. The band sounds great, Darrell Roberts on guitar, Mike Duda on bass and Frankie Banali on drums all doing their job well.
I bought this not long after its release date, as I had with all W.A.S.P. albums since the 1980’s. As a band they grabbed me from the start, but the albums had begun to swing wildly with each release. Whereas I enjoyed the tone of this album from the start, there was a distinct difference, in that there was none of the tongue-in-cheek humour on any of the songs here that W.A.S.P. had generally incorporated into parts of their albums in the past. The subject matter here was straight up serious, no puns, no relief, just for the most part anger and aggression, and no relief from it. As an album, that made it great to put on if you were really pissed off after a long day, but made it difficult to put on if you were just looking for an album to listen to in any other company. For me that didn’t really phase me, I’m happy to listen to it anytime, but the sheer belligerence of the material here must have pigeon-holed it for some fans. It was a different feel, one that did take some getting used to. The other part of the album that stuck out to me was the similarity to parts of some songs here to those from other albums, and in particular from The Crimson Idol. Two instances stick out immediately, the bridge in “Stone Cold Killers” especially, and then the several similar parts of “Hallowed Ground” that correspond to “The Idol” form that album. It’s only a small thing overall, but in being drawn to those similar riffs and harmonies it still grates with me a little to this day.
I still enjoy this album. It needs to be played in a closed environment to get the full effect in my opinion. Playing it in open air without volume does not give the full effect of the songs as they are written and performed. Headphone, or sitting in front of your stereo and letting them hit you rather than waft around you will allow you to feel Blackie’s anger, and after all that’s what drives this album, so you should be in a position to receive it.