Back in 1990, White Zombie must have seemed like an odd choice for major-label attention. Their 2 LPs & 3 EPs worth of material were ragged, noisy, fuzzed-out Frankenstein headtrips with lurching tempos & shrieking vocals that almost dared you to like them. But once they caught the attention of Geffen (probably the most important label in '90s mainstream rock), they turned around & delivered 2 albums of streamlined, radio-ready groove metal, starting with 1992's La Sexorcisto. Along the way, Rob Zombie managed to reignite the flame of Monster Kid culture, like a stoned dreadlocked Forrest J. Ackerman for the 1990s.
A major reason for the slick sound of La Sexorcisto is budget: suddenly the band had real money to make a record, & the production is about as polished as heavy music gets. Occasionally this works to its detriment, as some of the riffs on songs like "I Am Legend" & "Spiderbaby" are sludgy enough to make me wish for a little more mud behind the board. Another result of the major-label budget is the abundance of samples, which would become a Zombie trademark. There were some samples peppered here & there on the band's previous records, but La Sexorcisto has them on practically every track, not to mention the 2 interstitial "Knuckle-Duster" sample collages. They are the first (& so far only) indication of the industrial direction that Rob would take the band through the next album & his solo career. As for this album, keyboards are mostly absent, & the only danceable beats are the ones Ivan DePrume is making behind the kit.
Maybe the most significant reason for the band's riffier sound is the entrance of guitarist Jay Yuenger, who churns out a reliably muscular performance through a fistful of sinister riffs that convey the overall impression of spooky fun. A handful of the riffs (e.g. the verse riffs on "Soul-Crusher" & "Cosmic Monsters Inc.") resemble slowed-down thrash riffs, but overall the album escapes the derisive "half-thrash" label a lot of groove metal got tagged with during this era. Most of the riffs owe more to '60s psychedelia, with a smattering of Melvins influence in the sludgier moments, remnants of the band's earlier styles. The groove metal movement's de-emphasis of guitar solos holds true here, though, as there are lots of instrumental breaks where your ear expects a solo, but none is forthcoming. Sometimes Yuenger throws in some slidey, woozy leads instead, but more often the band just rides the groove, with maybe a spoken movie sample interlude. Not until "Soul-Crusher," the 4th song, do we get our first guitar solo, more bluesy & tone-focused than technical. A similar solo follows in "I Am Legend" 3 songs later, & an unimpressive wispy one in the late-album letdown "Grindhouse A Go-Go." For the most part, the guitars on La Sexorcisto aren't multi-tracked, so perhaps the band was worried about sounding thin. Maybe they wanted to put more emphasis on atmosphere & groove than guitar theatrics. Or maybe Yuenger just didn't like solos. Whatever the case, to my ears the band could have benefited from adding a lead guitarist & letting Yuenger focus on the twisted, smoking heap of riffage.
Sean Yseult on bass gets a little more tricky than your standard groove metal bassist. Every so often she breaks away from unison with the root guitar notes & does her own thing, like in the chorus of "Thunderkiss '65" & the intro to "Black Sunshine." In a metal band with only 1 guitarist, especially one who is fond of throwing in atonal Voivod-esque chord stabs (again, "Black Sunshine"), the bassist is often responsible for instrumental harmonies, & the album's most interesting musical moments are the ones where Yseult & Yuenger are playing against one another. She has freedom to do this thanks to DePrume's rock-solid, no-frills, so-showy-fills drumming: he never gets a solo, he never draws attention to himself. His snare tone is a little over-reverbed for my liking, but at least it isn't pingy.
Rob Zombie adjusted his vocal delivery from the earlier album's nasal shrieks to more of a midrange bellow. He hadn't quite landed on the bark he'd employ on his solo albums, but there was a lot of emphasis on rhythmic precision--some people compare it to rapping & see this as a precursor to the Korn sound, but I liken it more to Tom Araya's Hell Awaits delivery. But as always, the vocals are Rob's least important contributions to this album. His lyrics, artwork, style, sample choices & overall artistic direction are unmistakably vital, & were the big selling point for me & a lot of other horror-obsessed kids in the '90s. It's thanks to him that this whole album smells like 30 year-old bongwater. With lyrical topics & dialogue samples ranging from Night of the Living Dead to Richard Matheson to Spider-Baby to Russ Meyer to Urotsukidoji, Rob turned as many kids on to high-class trash as the aforementioned Forry Ackerman. Say what you will about him, I can't think of anybody who has done more to thrust lowbrow horror culture into the mainstream, & I can't not love him for that.
Still, this isn't a perfect album. It's too long, & tracks toward the end like "Grindhouse A Go-Go" feel a little samey in terms of riffs & vocal delivery, & then there's the aforementioned soloing weak spot. But on Halloween or Mischief Night when you turn on the blacklight, turn up the volume & start looking for trouble, it's not like that really fucking matters.
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