Album Review: "Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor" by Rob Zombie

Rob Zombie is now an elder statesman of metal. He can only be about four to five years away from Alice Cooper like acceptance amongst the elders of America.

It's still a bit difficult to think that twenty three long years have passed since this man's  music first came into my life, White Zombie's "La Sexorcisto." After that album though, they swung in a decidedly techno direction with "Astro Creep" and then moving even further to the darkside with the remixed version of the same album. It was hard to not be offended if you were a young metal head.

Rob then went solo and put out "Hellbilly Deluxe" which was even more of a techno album than the last two White Zombie releases. At this point, Mr. Zombie was dead to me, but here we are about fifteen years into his solo career with the latest record. I was drawn to this album because of Mr. John 5.

Review: "God Told Me To" by John 5

God Told Me To

Once I started playing guitar again, I rediscovered my love of a few things: death metal, instrumental guitar, and Guitar World. This John 5 album really touches on all of those things.

He plays bone crunching metal, all of his solo records are instrumental, and I read about this album in Guitar World.

John 5 is more than just a virtuoso guitar player. He is one of the most important players of our time, but almost no one has heard of him. His two most prominent gigs are as a sideman for Rob Zombie (current) and Marilyn Manson (past).

He has also recorded two albums with David Lee Roth under his given name John Lowery. He's recorded an album with Rob Halford and more. I know this makes him sound like he's a metal guitarist and nothing more, but he's also recorded for KD Lang, and many others. As a young player, his goal was to be a session player California. Well he's achieved that and more.

Review: "Born Villain" by Marilyn Manson

Marilyn Manson is back this year with "Born Villain." I don't know why precisely, but I bought it. I'm not the biggest fan of his (formerly theirs) anymore. Before this album, I only had "Portrait of an American Family" and "Lest We Forget." I hadn't listened to an entire studio album since the debut record.

Aside from Mr. Manson, the entire band was different on the current release than that one. Twiggy Ramirez, who was a member of the band when "Portrait of an American Family" was released, but not when it was recorded is playing guitar on this album, apart from that, he had also spent time away from the band. On a side note, I always think back to Metallica's "Some Kind of Monster" documentary when we was auditioning for the spot that Jason Newsted had recently abdicated and I really liked the way he sounded playing "For Whom the Bell Tolls," but I digress. It is rather strange seeing that the majority of the line up on this album doesn't have the sex symbol/serial killer stage name. I suppose now, what was once a band, is truly a solo singer and his back up band...