From the Gods on Voodoo Moon and the Soul Crusher to a savage world of Planet Motherfucker, a place with Legends and Black Sunshine, to the Blurring of the Technicolor filled Super Charger Heaven with Songs of Love, Destruction, and other Synthetic Delusions of the Electric Head, Rob Zombie emerged and would become his own blasted monster crushing all the posers of one man’s antiquity.
In time, he’d paint the world with his eclectic ultimate groove horror images. Things unspeakable, but never rivaled in their intensity. In sound and art. On screen and in books. Not since the final seconds of Blood, Milk, and Sky on Astro Creep 2000 has Rob Zombie been a part of something so extraordinarily unique and spellbinding. Hellbilly Deluxe II is just that. Captured within those eleven tracks is a new doomed laboratory created savior, the cry for estrogen on Mars, the secrets to the soul sucking factory of all your dreams, and new revelations of some “Seig Heil!” werewolf women manifestation. All of it along side a musically and lyrically driven heavy funk groove that exemplifies what a true Hellbilly really is.
“ALL HAIL!” what comes forth from the winds of an obvious Doom Crew and Sabbath influenced opening… Reaching out with the fingers of a madman, it’s Jesus Frankenstein! Zombie releases the definitive ideological monster of his own creation. Delayed guitar riffs lead into a clunky chorus driven jam. The imagery is continuously provided through the admirable joining of an array of haunted house sounds and straightforward unhinged music. Simplistic and hounded by layer after layer of groove and crowd chants and detailed lyrics and progression within a John 5 lead-covered rhythm to the end of Jesus Frankenstein’s life. Along the way and before such an end, Zombie is caught eerily dragging the corpse of the original Hellbilly down some dank hallway to the sound of an acoustic strumming and piddled piano stabs…and rightfully so. “All Hail Jesus Frankenstein!”
We’re Gonna’ Crash And Burn! Rock Motherfucker, cause’ there’s not much else. “Sick Bubblegum,” the first single and video from Hellbilly Deluxe II, is a rockin’ beast that runs smooth and alive. With the message of “Rock Motherfucker!” pounded continuously in Zombie’s incredibly unique grrrrrowling howls, the jam truly does stomp down hard and heavy on the way to the graveyard. Chew it up and spit it out, and witness the reality of Zombie’s living-dead room in the video… with everyone’s favorite Baby stretching not an ounce of imagination by chewing a wad of pink bubblegum as John 5 fades out in an unexpected requiem of sweet fibrosis guitar skills. What? Resorts back the unheard of jungle groove time of the original Hellbilly, Zombie’s voice distorted much like Jourgensen. Cannibals and vampires and the regrets of marrying a monster. Organ funk beats and the dancing wedding party of Jack The Ripper and a mastermind Vulture. Sweet stripper a go – go beats with blue, red, and purple strobes.
“MARS NEEDS WOMEN! ANGRY RED WOMEN” is the single most brutally honest and remarkably intelligent Zombie line heard since claiming to be a Jigsaw Man, Turning The World Around With A Skeleton Hand. On the Red Planet, the acoustic tribal rhythm is an execution line leading into a supremely heavy track, but not before reminiscing a bit of Sepultura’s Kaiowas… Clufetos kicks in with the bass drum and Zombie on vocals screaming his message. A straight demand for angry red women on Mars. Take a heavy footstep and walk in outer space with a flickering tasty guitar interlude just to lick and suck on the oozing clit of yet another succulent young Hellbilly Astro Girl while she moans in zero gravity. Fuckin’ Outer Space, man.
Had the art of Hellbilly been defined by a track on its successor, it would be Werewolf, Baby. A bit Kenny Wayne Shepherd, screaming neck sliding howls, some Cash, and sweet pickin’ ditties crashing in between the calling of the night and Clufetos maintaining what seems to be his signature accented grooves… all with Zombie creating his concoction through total abuse of normalcy.
The Virgin Witch, an Iommi massive bell clanging horrific opening, dripping with fucking evil…The song moves at the pace of usual time, but the echo in the vocals and the overpowering organ freak show behind it all leads to the seduction of a slow moving thing. Large and brutal. Steaming with head banging prowess. The Sabbath groove is evident once again in the progression to John 5’s amazing bluesy guitar solo that admittedly is all his own and one of the most incredible moments on the record.
Rob Zombie’s Dream Factory is an ugly filthy bitch. A short dirty pounding, delta reaching assault on Hollywood. “Inside The Mind Fucking, Meat Grinding, Unwinding, Soul Sucking Factory Of All Your Dreams!” Burn follows… incredibly smooth blues leads and Zombie brooding some unknown language for a head banging pole dancing groovy as all Hell chorus. A young high heeled otherwise nude woman of the flesh fucking a floor to ceiling chrome stage God.
Hellbilly Deluxe II escapes from whatever murderous heavy groove realm it’s been in as Cease To Exist begins with its mystic acoustic beauty. The album as an art piece is complete, and has reached an epic climax with this darkness and heart gripping phenomena.
Already at an inescapable Five Guns, Hellbilly Deluxe has until this moment simply been a limitation of the visible. The song is not so much a false duality, but an eyes closed hard doom classic. From behind it all, dialogues of enigmas and the philosophy of the unknown ride on the thick waves of smooth percussive disciple and layered riffs. Zombie holds back nothing in the lyrical suggestions of “Cease To Exist – Your Mind Is Breaking Free!” or his vast array of Ozzy vocal notes. A cathedral vision of progression takes the entire ride to the top of Mount Hellbilly to see what’s on the other side of it all, and then after given a taste of truly breaking free, it ends.
With Werewolf Women Of The SS, Rob Zombie created an Animals style Beach Boys dark club sound. No more a silly strip tease joint than the precursor to some future sick clown or dancing surfer babe news flash. The Germanic story of the Super Women of Death is the single bump in road, but undeniably fitting.
The opening notes of The Man Who Laughs is an immediate recalling of the classic Michael Kamen sound, but rolls right into a lightning ride of a Wylde-esque riff and continues to groove with orchestra pieces of old world instruments and the Hellbilly essence. Four minutes in and after the delusion of finality, Clufetos embarks on some instinctual four minute philosophical journey of percussion and physics. A tom tom rapture. Not so much a drum solo as way of saying goodbye. The Man Who Laughs comes back in as if it had never left and eventually fades out at nearly ten minutes with the crowd leaving and the violins expiring. A fitting funeral for what is obviously going to be the undead Hellbilly Deluxe II, as if Rob Zombie would have it any other way… to be jammed hard to again and again and again.
The most extraordinary reclamation of the familiar, a stand alone work of art not to be compared to the original. Still holding the Four Guns strong. Barrel chested with large gripping hands, a monster scary no longer, but an attitude to be held tight because if you don’t get it, you and your cohorts will absolutely become a victim of the original Soul Crusher, Rob Zombie.
If you like this album, check out: Powerman 5000[itunes link="http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/powerman-5000/id1093515?uo=4" title="Powerman_5000"], Ministry, NIN.
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