(Regain) Total Time: 42:21
Up until the mid-nineties DANZIG were a great band. The classic line up of John Christ on the guitars, Eerie Von on the bass, Chuck Biscuits on the drums and of course mainman Glenn Danzig on the vocals released four studio albums and a live one between 1988 -1994, all of them ranging from very good to great (with personal favourites being “How the Gods Kill” and “4”). After the “4” album Glen Danzig parted ways with the rest of his bandmates, and that is when DANZIG stopped being a band. Instead, it became a solo project of Glenn with constant line-up changes and unfortunately, apart from no more being a real band, DANZIG also stopped being a good band. 1996’s industrial-ish “Blackacidevil” featuring an all new line-up was a complete crap album that disappointed even his most devoted fans. It took Glenn 3 years to recover, and 1999’s “6:66 Satan's Child” marked his failed attempt to return to his early sound. The album was very mediocre and highlighted how significant was the input of the original line up, and especially that of John Christ. Another 3 years passed and DANZIG returned with a totally new line up again fro 2002’s “I Luciferi”, which showed some signs of improvement but clearly was not much more than a just decent album.
Yet, Glenn Danzig is a stubborn man, so what does he do in order to try and resurrect his past glories? It’s simple, he again fires his old band, hires three new members, forms a completely new line-up, changes label, and releases a new album (his 8th) entitled “Circle of Snakes”. But, are his efforts successful this time? Well, the answer is yes and no. Let me explain why:
“Circle of Snakes” is definitely an album in the right direction (at least for his long-time fans) and for sure the most interesting he has come up for a very long time. He manages to recreate the dark occult atmosphere of his early albums such as “How The Gods Kill” (although “Circle of Snakes” is not a concept album), and the album does include some really interesting tracks, like the wonderful eerie intro entitled “Wotan’s Procession”, the catchy “1000 Devils Reign, the excellent “When We Were Dead” with it’s imposing riff, the thrashy (!!!) “Hellmask” and the wonderful melodic “Black Angel, White Angel” were the Evil Elvis gives a great vocal performance with his powerful characteristic voice.
On the other hand, the album includes many uninteresting (or even boring) songs, a lot of recycled ideas and is very repetitive. It is an uneven album that on the whole it fails to impress, and after a few spins you’ll find yourself skipping many of the CD’s tracks. In other words, although it is clearly his best effort since 1994’s “4” it cannot be compared with his early works neither in terms of quality nor in terms of inspiration.
Therefore, if you are a devoted DANZIG fan and you liked “I Luciferi” then you will definitely like “Circle of Snakes”, as to this reviewer’s ears it is far superior. But if you expect to listen to something up to the standards of the first four DANZIG albums, then you will be disappointed, because despite being a good dark heavy rock album, it simply isn’t comparable to those.
By the way, the content of CD booklet is very interesting indeed!
