Monday, February 22, 2010

ROB ZOMBIE'S HELLBILLY DELUXE 2: A REVIEW - PART ONE

By FRITZ "DOC" FREAKENSTEIN









I admit it. I was never a fan of Rob Zombie’s first band White Zombie. I even bought ASTRO CREEP: 2000 for the wicked cool “More Human than Human” single. I sold it to a younger metal fan, after only playing it through a couple of times. In 1998, Rob Zombie released his first solo disc HELLBILLY DELUXE. It featured two singles: the addictive “Dragula” and the syncopated “Superbeast”. I bought this disc and played it endlessly for weeks. I have been a wicked Rob Zombie fan ever since! I dropped heavy cheddar on his next two cds THE SINISTER URGE and EDUCATED HORSES. Both are kick ass discs, but EDUCATED HORSES seemed like Rob was trying to mix up his sound even more -- which I thought was badass! It’s been five long years, but Rob has finally cut his fourth cd: HELLBILLY DELUXE 2! There are eleven electric cuts on this cd and all are worth repeated listens. The first track sets the tone for this monster mash-up of a cd! “Jesus Frankenstein” starts with slowly building guitars, which unleash to a grinding guitar crescendo, that run smack into a wall of thumping bass drums! That’s just the first 1:44 of this song. Rob’s lyrics are sparse and elusive, but imply the obvious parallels between Jesus’ resurrection and the undead life of the Frankenstein Monster. The simple “All hail, Jesus Frankenstein” chorus, sung by a powerful male choir, raise in furor until the screeching climax of the song! This is wicked pissa freakin’ Frankenstein cool! The second cut, "Sick Bubblegum", is one of the lesser cuts, but still has a nice grinding rhythm and some outstanding solo guitar work. I think the chorus of “Rock the motherf*cker hurts the punch of the song, rather than helps it. The third cut, “What?” , is a tribute to “B” movie tropes, that makes excellent use of Rob’s classic fuzz-vocals to describe “Vampire Lovers”, a “Cannibal Man” and “Satan’s Cheerleaders”! The second best cut on the disc (right after “Jesus Frankenstein”, of course) is the fourth cut, “Mars Needs Women”! As Rob did on his previous cd, EDUCATED HORSES, he uses a lengthy opening of acoustic guitar and stringed instrumentation to set the tone for this pulsing, throbbing beat-driven song about Mars needing “Angry Red Women”. Spastic use of electronic noises and a breathy female vocal bridge conjure up powerful erotic images that make me think this could be a future favorite of strippers everywhere. The fifth cut is another pissa scary song, “Werewolf, Baby”. Accompanied by fuzz slide guitars, Rob sings a lament to his werewolf baby who is “afflicted by what the fangs did”. A classic Rob Zombie tribute song to a classic monster, that rivals even “Dragula” from the first HELLBILLY DELUXE cd.

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