|
DANZIG 'Circle Of Snakes' (Evilive Records 2004)
The new eagerly awaited Danzig album is due to hit the shelves very shortly
and fans will be pleased to hear that it builds on the good work achieved by
their previous release, ‘I Luciferi’ of re-establishing the band as a great
rock outfit. The devilishly named ‘Circle of Snakes’ sets the scene for the
listener once more in the Dark and Twisted world of the Occult. Well, maybe
not quite that evil, but it still manages to get the imagination going.
Mr Danzig is no misfit in today’s ‘Heavy’ music scene -whilst it could be
argued that he had strayed somewhat with ‘6:66 Satan’s Child’ and
‘Blackacidevil’, he seems to have finally found the right balance by going
back to his ‘old’ sound and successfully incorporating industrial elements
into his recent releases, thus appealing to a completely new fan-base, as
well as potentially (?) winning back his older fans. A good example of this
‘symbiosis’ is the self-titled track of the album, ‘Circle of Snakes’.
Whether or not the band’s new sound is to your liking, it seems that Danzig
have blended the old and the new styles quite well. All that said, the music
is still undeniably 'Danzig'. Tracks like ‘1000 Devils Reign’, ‘Night,
Besodom’ and ‘Black Angel, White Angel’ hark back to the good old ‘Danzig’
and ‘Danzig II’ days of bluesy groove. The album actually manages to work on
many levels - tracks like the very appealingly named ‘Skin Carver’ will
probably delight fans of the chugging industrial Rob Zombiesque sound;
‘Skull Forest’ is virtually untainted by the ‘industrial’ and the thrashy
guitar riffs on ‘Hellmask’ are a nice little surprise to those who are not
so fond of ‘Goth’. In short, there’s something for everyone on this album.
One thing that does puzzle me is the presentation - both artwork and
production are somewhat lacking, in my opinion. The former is represented by
a rather amusing set of ‘nasty’ grainy photos of the Evil Glenn draped in a
rather ‘classy’ looking porn star (there are several of these for all those
who are already getting excited) and the front cover art is a tad
simplistic. Maybe that’s the idea, and, to be honest, I think it probably
works both for those who worship the band and for those who treat the whole
thing as a bit of a giggle. The production, on the other hand, does
genuinely disappoint - the guitars are both fuzzy and distant and the vocals
have been mixed in such a way that Glenn’s voice gives you a good
ear-bashing on some songs. That said, this doesn’t appear to be the case for
all the tracks, which is an even greater mystery.
Apart from this, ‘Circle of Snakes’ is a good album - definitely a
‘must-have’ for fans, but I doubt it will succeed in converting the
not-so-Unholy.
***½
Review by Emily Dgebuadze
|
