Autumn just hit 2 days ago & right on cue, the temperature in my town just dropped 20 degrees. Around this time of year I always spin tons of White/Rob Zombie, along with lots of Misfits, Danzig, Joy Division, 45 Grave, The Damned, Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy--you know, the usual suspects. So it was convenient when the random number generator offered me the '90s mainstream masters of psychedelic trash groove's 2nd major label record--their best-selling album & what would prove to be their last as a band. Among metalheads, White Zombie's credibility or lack thereof rests in the gap between this album & its predecessor, La Sexorcisto. To some, the band (whose "metalness" is always debated) tuning down their guitars & experimenting with more sludgy ("Greasy Paint and Monkey Brains") & even borderline death metal (the churning "Creature of the Wheel") riffs, created their heaviest & most metal release ever. Others see it as a selling-out inflection point, with the increased focus on industrial elements like drum machines ("Real Solution #9") & synthesized bass ("More Human Than Human") sounding like a rehearsal for Rob's more dancefloor-oriented solo material. Personally I see both points of view, & I think of Astro-Creep: 2000 like a carb-loading football linebacker who's simultaneously more & less metal than his organic, clove-smoking little brother.
Now I'm going to undermine that whole paragraph by declaring that the 2 albums are actually not that different. There has been 1 personnel change, with John Tempesta riding the drum throne vacated by Ivan De Prume, but you'd be hard-pressed to spot a difference between their no-frills, hard-hitting styles. If you tune the guitars back up to E standard, you'll find the songwriting to be spiritually similar to La Sexorcisto: same niteglow spookshow atmosphere, same cult movie samples on almost every track, same stoned word-salad lyrics, & the same avoidance of guitar solos. Actually there are even fewer solos this time around, with the only one worth mentioning popping up on "Grease Paint and Monkey Brains," an 8-bar blues workout that doesn't leave much of an impression. The guitars are multitracked to hell this time around (the album was recorded to 72 tracks!) & Jay Yuenger's trademark glissando leads show up as hooks on "Real Solution #9" & the smash single "More Human Than Human," but I'll repeat my assertion that this band could have benefited from adding a lead guitarist.
In keeping with the downtuned, slightly more aggressive nature of the songs, Rob has modulated his vocals downward. You can hear him moving from the trebly bellow of the last album toward the bark that would dominate his solo career, though there are songs like "Grease Paint" & "Blood, Milk and Sky" where he tries a harsh, sinister whisper with great success. Overall there are more effects on the vocals this time too: sometimes he sounds like he's shouting at you over a telephone, from behind a dungeon wall or through 6 feet of earth.
The final song, "Blood, Milk and Sky," could be seen as a tantalizing hint toward what the band might have done if they hadn't broken up. Its tone is more serious than the carnival dark-ride scares of the other songs, & it employs orchestral strings as well as wordless female vocals. The song is heavy, but I interpret it more as a nod to grunge than metal. I hear the influence of Alice in Chains in its harmonies & atmosphere. Would they have incorporated more of these styles on a hypothetical 3rd major-label effort? It's hard to say. After the band's breakup, Sean Yseult went into psychobilly, Jay Yuenger turned to engineering, & we all know what direction Rob went in. We're left with a binary star of radio-polished groove metal albums, caught in each other's orbit, really only comparable to themselves. I just used the term "groove metal," but really, do White Zombie sound very much like Pantera? Or Prong? Helmet? These albums exist in their own neon blood-splattered freakshow universe. If I had to choose, I usually prefer the more organic, straightforward La Sexorcisto, but when I'm in the mood for 1 or both of them, very little else scratches that itch. Happy spooky season!
No comments:
Post a Comment