Thank god for Glenn Danzig. He is one of the few artists who thankfully
stretches the boundaries of heavy metal and, in so doing, creates a
unique identity that's sort of like Elvis meets Morrison at the gates
of hell.
Opening his Santa Monica show with perhaps his strongest track yet,
"Long Way Back From Hell," from the excellent Lucifuge LP, the
intense pitch of the evening was quickly set. With two fine albums now
under his belt, Danzig has a plethora of strong material that made a
lengthly set speed by. New cuts like "Her Black Wings" and "Devil's
Plaything" stood proudly beside the older musical pilgrimages like
"Am I Demon" and "Twist of Cain."
Danzig has been so clever in flexing and bursting the limitations of the
genre that he can even play the moodier, melancholic laments like "Pain In
The World" and actually gain momentum where other metal acts would lose it.
Like Metallica, Danzig trusts his creative instincts to take him to an
artistic plateau to which his audience is open-minded enough to follow.
While some have written off Danzig's tales of Biblical evil as simple odes
to Satan, there's actually a great deal of soul searching underneath the
metaphors, questioning not only religious doctrines but how they relate to
us on the reality plane as well.
Though this show was the first of what will be a long tour, the band
proved surprisingly cohesive. The band's excellent musicanship erases
another misconception about Danzig being simply a one-man show. John
Christ's guitar pierces and shreds like the crown of thorns upon the head
of Jesus. The drumming of Chuck Biscuits also merits special mention for
its passion and aggressiveness.
But perhaps most interesting was the sold-out proof that Danzig has become
one of those bands that has achieved an impressive fan following while
giving a big middle finger in the eye of both MTV and consumer radio.
-Scott Schalin