Rob Zombie noticed within the 2010s with Hellbilly Deluxe 2, a sequel to his sensible debut. It marked his most shamelessly over-the-top report in years, reaffirming Zombie within the new decade as an unabashed champion of freaks, spooks, and kooks. And this time he didn’t wait round too lengthy in following it up. Launched on April 23, 2013, Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor tightened Zombie’s grip on the throne.
Hearken to Rob Zombie’s Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor on Apple Music and Spotify.
Although a sequel, Hellbilly Deluxe 2 wasn’t a reproduction of former triumphs given a shiny new paint job. It was an album that noticed Rob Zombie adopting a extra collaborative method to writing together with his band; an album that, whereas being unmistakably Rob Zombie, typically felt – fairly charmingly – like a bunch of fellows cranking out tunes in Zombie’s storage, surrounded by all of the bizarre issues that undoubtedly hold on these partitions. (Critically, are you able to think about Rob Zombie’s storage?) With Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor, nevertheless, it was time to make issues planet-sized once more.
For a begin – you didn’t misinterpret it – this report actually is known as Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor. Who else however Rob Zombie may name an album that and have followers assume, Yep, that appears about proper? The truth that he adopted it up with an much more absurdly titled album, The Electrical Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser, says all of it, however with its Technicolor paintings and that moniker, Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor doesn’t precisely scream “subtle.”
Opening your album with a music known as “Teenage Nosferatu Pussy” doesn’t, both. Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor is Zombie wholly again to his most ludicrous finest, bearing essentially the most colossal set of arena-worthy anthems he’d penned to date within the twenty first Century.
“Teenage Nosferatu Pussy” is likely one of the most legitimately sinister tracks in his discography, its mid-paced however remorseless march oozing sleaze and sinister intent. On the different finish of the dimensions, there’s the observe that instantly follows it: lead single “Dead City Radio And The New Gods Of Supertown.” Right here’s the place the celebration actually begins – Hammond organ accents and all. Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor is a report with zero inhibitions, from its title to its songwriting and its manufacturing, which supplies Rob Zombie essentially the most legitimately massive-feeling sound he’s possibly ever had.
“Behold, The Pretty Filthy Creatures!” and “Lucifer Rising” are each significantly fast-paced tracks for Rob Zombie, exhibiting the reckless abandon of a greasy motorbike gang. But the thickness of the guitar, and the drum tones on supply, makes them really feel like they’ve the load and precision of Rammstein, moderately than the scrappy primitivism of punk – additional enhanced by the recent recruitment of Ginger Fish on drums (simply the powerhouse participant who carried out on Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Famous person, Mechanical Animals, and Holy Wooden, then). Rob Zombie was as soon as once more making reliable industrial steel music – music that might solely ever really feel at dwelling on a stage with large fire-breathing robots, or the place which Rob Zombie owns greater than virtually some other steel artist: the dancefloor.
“Revelation Revolution” – opening with a pattern which states that “life should be ecstasy” – is one in all Zombie’s most underrated thudding hip-shakers, the person himself reveling a lot in his character as he opens the jam with, “Spray-paint a pentagram on your face, sing it hey-hey-yeaaaah,” and delivers the refrain with a figuring out, monstrous sneer. “The Girl Who Loved The Monsters” is a sluggish membership grind within the lineage of “Living Dead Girl,” whereas “Rock And Roll (In A Black Hole)” spends half of its working time as one thing approaching a reliable dance music, Zombie drawling repeatedly, “You gotta open your mind, girl,” as if to goad anybody ready round for the guitars – earlier than the music all of a sudden explodes right into a riff that’s so insistent, unrelenting and goddamn exhausting, like “Whole Lotta Rosie” being performed by The Terminator. It’s completely superb.
After which there are moments which can be plain ridiculous. A cowbell-driven cowl of Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re An American Band”? The whole lot of “Ging Gang Gong De Do Gong De Laga Raga”? It’s intergalactic ranges of enjoyable.
At this level in his profession, Rob Zombie was by no means going to all of a sudden begin making wild swerves into progressive doom or artsy post-rock, so by making his most ridiculously extravagant album in a decade, he additionally made one in all his most partaking. Mix that with the energy of the songwriting throughout the board – there’s not one observe that doesn’t earn its place – and you’ve got a real late-career spotlight in your arms.
Rob Zombie’s Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor might be purchased right here.