MISFITS "Famous Monsters"
(Roadrunner)
8 out of 10

November 1999. Last issue, like an 'orrible oracle, I bellowed forth from the dark corner of my column that this album rocks like King Kong in a cage. Now a further four weeks closer to Halloween, have my fiery rantings died to mostly mute embers or is this record still as incendiary as Peter Steele's perfect lay? Is it a worthy follow-up to the sing-a-long in the shower 'American Psycho', or should Jerry and company hang up their devilocks and frightwigs in favour of organ-pipes and slippers?
Call me a wee willie weirdo but I think this is a bigger, better monster. But then I've always had a sinister love of the Misfits brand of ooky, melodious three-chord fuzz, from the early Stooges-fuelled garage grunge of 'Static Age' right through to the Metallica-inspired hack 'n' thrash that was 'Earth A.D.' Hell, as sacrilegious as saying this is to the memory of their previous ghoul guide - the velvet-lined coffin crooner, Glenn Danzig - I thought they got better (not bitter) on their resurrection album with freshblood vokillist Michale Graves. Raw and bloody as rare steak, yet seasoned with a crisp, clear production this was the Misfits for the '90s...yet if anything, this latest offering stands astride the rekindled fire that was 'American Psycho' and pisses in its face from a fair height.

First off, Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein's (his father's given name) guitar work is much improved, lurching one minute from a punk wall of noise to a thick slab of mental riffage while founding bassist Jerry Only deftly underpins it all with drummer Chud (no, not Crud...that was the last 'un). Graves, I still dig. His voice, a little shriller than Danzig's, soars like the bastard hybrid of Tom Jones, Dave Vanian, and Elvis through more cool choruses than those sung on the terraces at Loftus Road.

Of the 18 tracks under dissection, 18 stand out. 'The Forbidden Zone', 'Living Hell', 'Dust To Dust', and 'Die Monster Die' are all classics, while the tongue-in-bumcheek 'Saturday Night' slouches along, boozily reeking of the '50s and Grease movies. 'Descending Angel', however, wins wings down as my fave Misfits track since 'Ghoul's Night Out'.

Points could have been deducted for 'Helena' sounding like the end of Metallica's 'Welcome Home (Sanitarium)' stitched onto 'Creeping Death', and for the ridiculous lyrics on 'Lost In Space'. But I've listened to this album so many times I'll be whistling it in my coffin. A famously monstrous (13/10). If I do slay so myself.

Dani Filth