Danzig – Deth Red Sabaoth

D’s Take: “Deth Red Sabaoth” is Danzig’s first album in six years and probably the best Danzig album since “Danzig 4”. However, take warning. While there are enough high points to mark this release as a decent effort, it’s a pretty inconsistent effort at that. If you’re a Danzig fan I’d wager you’ll look past the several duds and the shitty production and more likely than not you’ll enjoy this album. If you’re not already a die-hard, then we should talk before you pick this one up.

In order to understand and really appreciate the highs and lows of “Deth Red Saboath”, one must first ask, “What makes Danzig Danzig?” No, it’s not his inability to take a punch. Jeez, you guys are mean. The answer is the unique moods he created on his best (and earliest) releases by the use of slow, heavy bluesy pounding (throbbing, pulsing, twitching, squishy) metal and keeping his classic wail simple and peculiar to his brand of metal. On “Saboath”, the peaks and pleasant surprises flow exactly as you would expect when he follows this formula. When he starts to depart from what he does best, he drops the ball and sounds like a jackass.

Hammer of the Gods is the first track and a solid, up-tempo headbanger – a good way start. The Revengeful and Rebel Spirits are classic Danzig – slow, hard, bluesy, eerie. These first three tracks are what you’d normally expect from a Danzig album and it’s nice to see GD return to form after the half-assed digi-crap he experimented with in the recent past. Tommy Victor (Prong) is back on guitars and I like what he does. His output was one of the album’s strengths. His screechy end-notes get a little overwhelming on The Revengeful but it’s just his thing and it’s easy to forgive him after he saves some of the later tracks from complete failure with some decent solo work.

Black Candy is the album’s turning point. It could have been a good song, maybe a great song. However, at this point on the production (GD has the production credit, so he can take the blame), takes a turn for the worse and it ruins the song and the next four or so that follow. GD’s voice sounds horrible. I’ve heard that the album was recorded in analog but at this point GD’s voice begins to sound irritatingly digital, turning what could have been a fun, darkly erotic, classic Danzig track into a goofy mess. On a Wicked Night is the song’s first single and, in my humble opinion, the weakest track on the album. GD’s familiar voice is reigned-in and it kinda sounds like he’s playing around with AutoTune. A bit too over-worked for my tastes. Not enough stank. It needed more stank.

Deth Red Moon is a decent enough track but the guitars drown out the vocals to the point that they take a back seat to the rest of the band. Ju Ju Bone is just plain stupid. Like I’ve said, GD’s M.O. used to be creating evil, erotic moods by using heavy blues, his unique voice and some pretty interesting imagery. When he tries to force the same mood by dragging out a five minute dick joke he changes the recipe and mucks it up. And believe me, I love a good dick joke. Not to mention, five minutes is a tad long for a double entendre. Or is it just an entendre? I doubt Ju Ju Bone is capable of two meanings. (Tee-hee. Bone.)

Pyre of Souls: Infanticide is three minutes of self-indulgent, nonsensical, and not to mention, piss-poor lamentation. It is aptly titled, however, as I imagine that is exactly what the murder of infants sounds like. (Cuz it’s bad.) We finish a bit stronger with Pyre of Souls; Season of Pain, the album’s opus clocking in at over seven minutes of a heavier, more metallic sound and a pretty righteous solo from Victor. Not too shabby. Left Hand Rise Above, closes the joint out, the album’s best and probably most satanic song and an appropriate closer with the final, dramatic wailing chorus.

All things told, “Saboath” might not be a great album, it might not be a strong album from front to back, but it has its moments, and it’s a step up from Danzig’s more recent offerings. When he’s rockin, he’s rockin, and when he fails he fails bad enough that a hack like me feels justified in putting him down. If you’re a fan, you’re not gonna hate it, and that’s probably good enough.

I see two boobs but only one nipple.

T’s Take: First off I’d like to welcome D Frankenstein to The FSS.  While I think he used the words “erotic” and “Danzig” in the same sentence a couple too many times, we’ve been boys since we were 7 and don’t nobody know Metal like The D.  As such I’ma let his review stand on its own and tell you that his word is to be taken as Metal gospel and not refuted.  Instead I’ma offer up a little tale about when I went to pick this album up over the weekend.

I hit up Vintage Vinyl last Saturday and after a little browsing took a couple few CDs and records up to the counter to pay.  One of which was “Deth Red Sabaoth” as I was eager to review it.  As soon as the girl behind the counter gets to ringing up ‘ol Danzig she stops dead in her tracks and asks me “Are you sure you want to get this?”.  I go to this record shop all the damn time and never have I been asked by one of their employees to second guess a purchase.  So I say “I don’t know, I thought I was sure but now I’m not.”  She puts it to me like this “Look we have about 10 of these used in the back for $5.99, why don’t you just get one of them, it’s really terrible.”  Now I’m thinking I don’t want it at all.  The damn thing came out this week and they already have 10 used copies.  That can’t be a good sign.  But I’m adventurous.  And I always remember this bit Henry Rollins did when I saw him do spoken word many years back where he brought up Billy Idol’s “Cyber Punk” album and the audience groaned in unison.  Rollins went on to say that unless you listen to it…unless you actually sit down and waste your sixty minutes or whatever it is, you don’t really know how bad it is and don’t really have a right to groan.  So I grabbed a used copy of “Sabaoth” from one of the other clerks and figured, fuck it, I’m sure it sucks but it’s my duty to find out why.  The girl behind the counter also told me that during Danzig’s in-store appearance the week prior he was such a grandiose dick that one Danzig super-fan (who came looking just like ol Glenn, muscalls and all) even tore his concert tickets up before leaving the shop.  I asked her if she went home that night and watched Danzig get punched out on You Tube to make herself feel better and she replied “about twenty times”.

So I throw on “Sabaoth” and immediately think, this ain’t so bad.  In fact, the opener Hammer of the Gods is pretty damn good.  I’m a big fan of “Danzig I through III” and gave up on him after that, but I was getting the old vibe with “Sabaoth” at first and thought maybe the clerks at Vintage Vinyl just had clouded judgment cause he was such a dick to them and their patrons.  But the more the album went on the less enthused I got and in ultimately I was let down.  The stuff on here that’s bad like Ju Ju Bone, Pyre of Souls, and Black Candy is so bad as to ruin any good that comes before or after it.  Maybe… maaaaaaybe you can throw a couple of the good tracks on a mix or two and forget the album.  But why would you?  This might be the only time I’d ever even consider telling you to do this but maybe just buy a couple tracks off iTunes or something (get Hammer, Rebel Spirits, Deth Red Moon, and Left Hand Rise Above and you’ll be good).  Or get it used.  Or not at all.  But don’t go telling people it sucks until you’ve listened to it yourself, you gotta earn the right to shit on someone else’s art…  even if they look like Richard Lewis on steroids, act like an asshole, and haven’t done anything worthwhile since mesh shirts were alright to wear on stage.

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