OR   Search for Artist/Title    Advanced Search
 
you are not logged in...  [login] 
All Reviews    Edit This Review     
Review: 'Danzig'
'Black Laden Crown'   

-  Label: 'AFM Records'
-  Genre: 'Rock' -  Release Date: '26th May 2017'

Our Rating:
I have a difficult relationship with Danzig. Not personally, you understand. Perhaps my first ‘introduction was in the early 90s when the live version of ‘Mother’ was played on ‘Beavis and Butthead’. From that point on, I’ve struggled with Danzig. Not just musically, and the sub-Jim Morrison styled affectations but the vaguely homoerotic muscle posturing.

Lately, Glenn’s been looking decidedly worse for wear in live footage recently: his visage a ghoulish rictus that seems to have eroded, while his vocal powers have seemingly been on the wane. So the fact there’s a new Danzig album is a deal in itself. The fact it’s actually been garnering critical plaudits – and is actually rather good – is an even bigger deal.

The six-minute title track opens the album, and it’s a low-paced dirge: the guitars and drums trudge lugubriously and conjure an oppressive atmosphere. But the drawling vocals are way too high in the mix. It’s an issue which plagues the album as a whole. ‘Eyes Ripping Fire’ presents a thick, thunderous barrage of chugging, churning guitars, and forge gnarly, dark furrow, but the vocals don’t sit within the sound, but on top of it.

What’s the problem with the vocals being up in the mix, exactly? Apart from the fact it sounds crap? It also sounds like too much ego. Having the vocal way up in the mix takes the focus away from the collective and onto the individual. Granted, this is a Danzig album. But if you’re on the market for a rock album, you want rock, not an album with a pop mix with the singer dominating everything. You want rock, you want guitars, and you want them up front.

‘Last Ride’ brings a heavy Doorsy vibe and Danzig hollers and yawls in full-on blues brawler mode over a dirty guitar grind that’ half ‘20th Century Boy’, half ‘LA Woman’ Against squalling feedback and grunting guitars, Danzig’s hollering ‘I’m lonelaayyyy!’ in an Ian Astbury style would have far more power if he didn’t a) sounds like was ripping off Ian Astbury b) if his bawling didn’t bury the megalithic three-chord riff which propels the song. It’s got grit, it’s got grind… and yet it feels compactly sackless and without any real sense of attack and it’s all in the mix.

‘Black Laden Crown’ is actually a decent enough album: it’s dark, heavy, driving. It’s badly marred by an abysmal mix.
  author: Christopher Nosnibor

[Show all reviews for this Artist]

READERS COMMENTS    10 comments still available (max 10)    [Click here to add your own comments]

There are currently no comments...
----------



Danzig - Black Laden Crown