Title: Danzig III: How the Gods Kill
Artiste: Danzig
Genre: Heavy Metal
Familiarity: Zero, but Batty never shuts up about them.
Recommended by: Oh, let me think... The Batlord, funnily enough!
Expectations: With cover art by Giger I'm already onboard, and the Wiki entry tells me they play in a “bluesy doom style, like Black Sabbath”, whereas I had assumed they were death metal. How wrong can you be? Could be a wild ride.
1. Godless: Goes from a bouncy, boogie oepning instrumental into a slow, crushing doom one in a heartbeat, and the vocals don't come in till two minutes into the song. I'm glad to hear that vocalist Glenn Danzig is clear and easy to understand, with if anything a kind of southern boogie style to his singing. Big Sabbath type groove kicking up now in the midsection as it takes off. The kind of high priest routine at the end is a bit lame though.
2. Anything: Starts very acoustic sounding, could be a ballad, but so soon? Nah, thought not. Picking up a little now on a good bouncy riff with a passionate vocal. Kind of reminds me of CCR and BOC at times, that riff.
3. Bodies: Great bassline with a truly hard rock guitar riff and a boogie feel about it. Powerful vocal.
4. How the gods kill: Nice gentle guitar intro to this, soft vocal but any thoughts of it having been a ballad are quickly dispelled as the drums crash in and the guitar shrieks, while Danzig's vocal intensifies and gets louder and angrier. Then it goes back to the original theme. Love the way it changes up, sign of real talent here.
5. Dirty black summer: Very dark atmospheric start before the guitar bites through. Good rocker. Hardly metal though. But still good.
6. Left hand black: This however is metal as ****.
7. Heart of the devil: And this is blues to the max. I read they wanted Willie Dixon on the song, but he died before he could honour that commitment. How selfish!
8. Sistinas: This is a real laidback, almost pop ballad. Like this a whole lot.
9. Do you wear the mark: Back to the punching heavy doom metal
10. When the dying calls: And this is kind of like metal meets Zep or Purple.
End result: Some very good tracks but not quite as heavy as I had expected it would be. Would probably not convert overnight but would not be averse to hearing more from Danzig. Good variety and I like the use of both blues and bits of soul in their music.
So, Love or Hate? I'll be happy to give it a
Love.