Danzig - Black Laden Crown

Angry Metal Guy

I remember being instantly taken with the sound of Danzig‘s self-titled debut when I saw the video for “Twist of Cain” on MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball. Sure, I knew Mr. Danzig from The Misfits and Samhain, but this was a much different beast. Metal, meaty, manly and catchy as all get out. Thus began my fandom for the man’s solo career, which burned brightly from 1988 to 1996, at which time the biscuit wheels came off the gravy train to the sickening sounds of electronica. Steel Druhm raves for no man, and as Danzig explored weirder and weirder electronica-soaked soundscapes, I was forced to leave the Luci-hall. 2010s Ded Red Sabaoth was hailed as a return to his grim, doom-grooving ways, and it was easily the best thing the man released in 15 years, but still couldn’t touch the classic albums with 50 foot mesh shirt. After a nearly 6 year wait, we finally get new material from New Jersey’s second-most infamous devil. Has the Shirtless One finally reclaimed his grip on the pec-metal genre? Will mothers everywhere shudder anew at the prospect of their daughter dating the dark lord of doom rock? So many questions abound…

I’ll admit going into Black Laden Crown with expectations at low ebb, as Danizg‘s 2015 cover album Skeletons was righteous garbage. With the opening title-track however, prospects brightened and hope began to flicker faintly. Doomy like a funeral march, the dirgy riffs set the mood perfectly, and when Glenn’s Evil Elvis baritone comes in, all seems right in the underworld again. This is really good stuff and could have easily appeared on Danzig II. Glenn’s vocals sound youthful and it feels like a time warp back to the glory days of black wings and killer wolves.

Followups like “Eyes Ripping Fire” and “Devil on Hwy 9” aren’t quite up to the opener’s level, but they’re solid, mid-tempo biker doom with a murky, Stygian charm. “Devil on Hwy 9” almost sounds like something left over from White Zombie‘s La Sexorcisto album with Danzig guesting on vocals. It’s rudimentary music-wise, but succeeds on attitude and moxie alone. “Last Ride” is a return to the atmosphere of his debut with a chorus that sticks, and Prong‘s Tommy Victor spices things up with a trippy, 70s style twist to his solo. Cuts like “The Witching Hour” roil with evil energy, and the album wraps up well with the second best cut, the simmering serial killer love song “Pull the Sun,” which is like a companion piece to older chestnuts “Stalker Song” and “Sistanas.”

All nine songs are good, though “Blackness Falls” runs about 2 minutes too long, and the album’s mostly mid-tempo cruise control would have benefited from a few more upbeat, urgent moments. My biggest issue with Black Laden Crown is the way Danzig’s vocals were recorded. Sometimes it’s as if he was too far away from the mic while laying down his vocals, and others times too close, as there’s audible clipping and distortion when he hits his patented he-man belly bellows. For such an established veteran act so dependent on the vocals to carry the show, this seems particularly perplexing.

Production issues aside, it’s a revelation of sorts how good Danzig sounds. Even on Deth Red Sabaoth his vocals seemed worn out at times, but he sounds re-energized and revitalized here. Sure, he’s lost something off his fastball since the 90s when his chest-thumping vocal heroics garnered him fans far afield of metal and punk, but for a man in his 60s (damn, that makes me feel olde by extension), Glenn can still bring something to the monster mash. Musically, this is a more brooding, mid-tempo platter than the often aggressive Deth Red. I hesitate to call it introspective or reflective as he’s still singing about devils, highways and witching hours, but the mood is definitely one of a sullen, pensive icon in semi-repose. Tommy Victor continues his long-time associate with Danzig, delivering a respectable collection of heavy, memorable riffs and fat grooves, along with some out of left field soloing and jangled fretboard abuse. I still miss John Christ but Tommy does an admirable job of keeping things edgy and interesting.

Black Laden Crown is a much better album than I expected at this point in Danzig‘s career. It’s consistently good, at times even great and gets its hooks deeper in your flesh with every spin. It can’t equal the early classics, but it can sit aside Deth Red as a respectable catalog capstone after so much mid-period pablum. It’s gritty, tough doom rock for black souls and that’s all I need from the man, the myth, the Lodi, New Jersey legend with the blood soaked lawn sprinklers. Danzig, motherfucker!

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 276 kbps mp3
Label: Nuclear Blast (NA) | AFM Records (EU)
Websites: danzig-verotik.com | facebook.com/Danzig
Releases Worldwide: May 26th, 2017

The post Danzig – Black Laden Crown Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

Pitchfork 64

Being a metal singer is physically demanding, and even the most seemingly triumphant of them know you can’t slay age. Rob Halford knows it, James Hetfield knows it—does Glenn Danzig know it? His “metal Elvis” voice isn’t what it used to be, and he is his voice. It hasn’t kept him away from touring—the Misfits reunion finally happened last year, after all—but his performances have suffered live and in the studio. He’s not known for being self-aware (except for when dealing with photographers at shows), and an eccentric like him can’t be too self-aware. That doesn’t excuse his sloppy wreck of a covers album, 2015’s Skeletons, or the fact that he put footage of one of his teeth falling off into his “’68 Comeback Special” homage “Legacy.” But perhaps he has found a critical voice within. Black Laden Crown is Danzig’s strongest album in some time, because he’s mostly built it around his own limitations.

Many of the song here are on the slower end of the metal-blues he pioneered with his first three records, and his aged croon needs that slack. “Last Ride” feels like it could have come from the in-the-round jams on the “Danzig Legacy” television special—it’s primitive and laid-back, his lack of self-awareness working in his favor at last. He doesn’t overextend himself, gliding over the swampy buzzes of “The Witching Hour” and the pounding chugs in “Skulls & Daisies.” Like the more extreme bands he’s taken on the road over the past decade, his vocals are becoming more textural and less the main focus. That actually works, as Crown has his smartest writing in years, keeping his youthful demons alive, if not running amok. He may have matured, but we don’t want to him to grow up.

While Crown exists to show that there’s optimism about Danzig, “Devil On Hwy 9” is an argument to be cynical (and it wasn’t the wisest choice as the album’s lead single). Vocals notwithstanding, it lands among his most charging songs, like “Dirty Black Summer” and “Am I Demon.” He wants to capture the biker spirit he’s singing about, but when he tries to rage, he’s just hoarse. There’s none of the warmth fused with menace that he once singularly commanded. He should heed “Eyes Ripping Fire” as a better model for what he can do in a more rocking mode, as its sludgier pace meshes better with his moan. Even if “Devil” is the only real misstep on this record, it confirms the worst fear about him: he just isn’t built for the more driving songs anymore.

Guitarist Tommy Victor deserves a lot of credit for Crown’s successes. The mechanical playing style that suited him in Prong was initially a mismatch for Danzig’s heavy blues, and 2004’s Circle of Snakes tried to graft both styles to no avail. 2010’s Deth Red Sabaoth made headway into restoring the classic Danzig sound, and while it would be presumptuous to say he’s transformed into O.G. Danzig guitarist John Christ, this record is the closest Victor has sounded to him. Repressing your own style to ape your most beloved predecessor would seem like a disaster, but Victor has loosened up, scaling back on the pinch harmonics and embracing fluidity. The title track also shows how Victor takes the pressure off of Danzig to go grand, furiously soloing where the singer would once howl into abandon.

Danzig III: How the Gods Kill will turn 25 in July, and Danzig is well aware; he says he’ll play more material from that record in his upcoming live shows. On Gods, he found a tenderness in his dark craft, focusing on slower songs—which is also what works with Crown. The anniversary might overshadow this new album, and that may have been a welcome distraction in the past—but Danzig is, for once, on the right path here. His thunder has quelled, but his ear is sharpening again. And it’s that ear that made some of the most approachable yet enduring metal of the late ’80s and early ’90s.