Hellbilly Deluxe - Rob Zombie (1998)
While at the moment he's busy directing inconsequential remakes of Halloween, Mr. Zombie previously focused his efforts mainly on music, first being a part of the band White Zombie, and then doing a few solo albums. His love for horror b-movies is as apparent here as it is in his other films House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects. It's the general "theme" of the album, and difficult not to notice when the tracks have names like Call of the Zombie, Living Dead Girl, and Meet the Creeper. Why's this appropriate for Halloween then? Mostly the lyrical content, and the album's general aesthetic - it's all marvelously over-the-top, many of the tracks being deliberately "sinister," but not in a way that they take themselves too seriously like many metal bands seem to. Some of the interludes between tracks sound as if they've been taken straight from the old drive-in films that the album is inspired by (the opening track is the sound of creaking floorboards, doors, and thunder, while a little girl's voice recites: "And out of the darkness the zombie did call / True pain and suffering he brought to them all / Away ran the children to hide in their beds / For fear that the Devil would chop off their heads"). The music itself is great, especially when you crank up the volume. It's nothing too complicated, mainly consisting of crunching guitars, straight-up headbangers with stomping beats (Superbeast (my favourite song on the album), Dragula, Demonoid Phenomenon) and industrial, thumping grooves (Living Dead Girl). I personally love it, and it's very fitting for the holiday.
I've only just realised thanks to Wikipedia - turns out November 17th sees the release of Hellbilly Deluxe 2. Cool coincidence! You can hear the first single off it here, although obviously YouTube doesn't do the sound justice.
No comments:
Post a Comment