this is not pitchfork

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