Rob Zombie: The Superbeast Is Back

 

So Rob Zombie has decided to bring back the mystique of his early albums? With the return of guitarist Mike Riggs and bassist Rob "Blasko" Nicholson, plus drummer Ginger Fish joining the lineup, it's clear we're looking at one of the most powerful lineups to back Zombie in decades.

Zombie, who has stood out in such diverse fields as music, film, comics, painting, and music video direction, and long before all that was a graphic designer turned underground musician, has returned to his main battlefield with all the weight that implies. The Great Satan is a title chosen with great wisdom given the current geopolitical context, and a song titled F.T.W. 84 (Fuck The World) feels more than appropriate right now. No need to explain why.

The guitars and rhythms are brutal. There's a clear return to the most intense moments of his musical career, to the muscle of his White Zombie era, and to the industrial abrasion of his early solo work. Some of the accessibility and fluidity that both eras had has been lost along the way, and in its place is an unrelenting barrage of riffs, double bass drums, and Zombie's voice, which sounds like Tom Waits who escaped straight out of hell.

Tarantula is almost industrial, though the band enjoys itself quite a bit and tries to keep things as organic as possible without sounding mechanical. (I'm a) Rock N Roller borrows lyrics straight from David Bowie himself and sounds like something that could have come out of Marilyn Manson's mind. Heathen Days is one of the most beastly tracks on the album, with Riggs spitting out the most devastating riffs imaginable. It's worth remembering that Tommy Victor from Prong recorded Circles of Snakes, Danzig's heaviest album. One wonders if Riggs could someday resurrect old Glenn's career.

Black Rat Coffin unimaginatively blends Alice Cooper and Nine Inch Nails, ending up like a bad track from Antichrist Superstar. Punks and Demons brings Tommy Victor's guitars with Danzig back to mind once again. Out of Sight recovers part of White Zombie's most legendary sound. Some will say The Black Scorpion is the most brutal thing Rob has done in recent years, though in reality it's just thrash metal with a few somewhat out of place gothic touches. Unclean Animals sounds like a song discarded by the Butthole Surfers.

The Great Satan is not a bad album, but it's far from the best in Rob's discography. It's a great record, but not a superbeast. At sixty one years old, Rob remains a remorseless mastodonic force. The musical equivalent of Mike Mignola's Hellboy comics or Panos Cosmatos' film Mandy.