Tuesday, November 18, 2008

51. Danzig - Danzig 4

This album opens with

I am a walking
screaming hell
a thing of torture to behold
this vivisection
splits my soul

and then the music kicks in and you get Danzig's surly, throaty voice and pounding drums and I remember why I used to worship this whole album.

I love Glen Danzig. I know. He's a bit cheesy. A bit over the top. But that's a lot of what I love about him. The mix of metal riffs with with lyrics about death and pain and evil are everything I ever loved about death metal, without the pain of actually listening to death metal.

This album kills. And I don't mean that ironically or anything. It is all killer, no filler. I've listened to this so many times from start to finish that I know every single nuanced fluctuation in Danzig's voice. And while singing I give the black sun/to sear off your tongue makes me feel really self-aware in a "dude, you are 46 years old, should you still be singing this stuff?" kind of way, there's a perverse enjoyment in doing so, especially when you get to Let It Be Captured and you listen to Danzig make sweet, sweet love to his own voice.

Favorite song: Going Down to Die
Danzig on Aqua Teen Hunger Force

2 comments:

Cullen said...

This is not my favorite Danzig, but it's one of my favorites. I bought this album while I was in basic training. At the end, we stayed an extra week so we could take Christmas leave. During that last week, they took it a little easier on us and let us go to the PX to do some shopping. I bought this and Slayer's Divine Intervention. Helped mellow out an otherwise extreme experience.

Anonymous said...

"Brand New God" is really just one of the best songs Danzig ever did. Sidenote: My high school flame sent me a bouquet of black roses once for a valentine. The card had only the lyrics to "Let It Be Captured" - on black paper of course. It's hilarious to me now, but oh, we were so deep, dark and tortured!

-- Staz