Any attempt to decipher the motivations of twenty-first century Rob Zombie may well be a fool’s errand. Admitting this is hardly revolutionary; this has largely been the case since ever since his film career, once burgeoning with great promise, intersected and subsequently became inextricably tied to his music career, circa 2003. It is difficult to see what inspires him more as an artist, and above that, more difficult to ascertain what he’s trying to prove.
The unfortunate upshot of all these branches growing increasingly tangled is the distinct reality that Zombie has become a jack of all trades and a master of none. He has yet to produce an album that speaks to the legacy-defining accomplishment of either “Hellbilly Deluxe” or its follow up “The Sinister Urge.” However, there seems to be some belief in camp Zombie that the more verbose and nonsensical an album’s title is, the greater the chance it will rekindle past glory. Thus, “The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy.”
The album departs with great promise. After the customary scene-setting open, the first jet out of the hanger is “The Triumph of King Freak (A Crypt of Preservation and Superstition.)” This track romps and rattles with the throaty rumble that so capably identified all the greatest moments of Zombie’s musical history, be they White or Rob. This kind of thundering, chaotic distortion fest that abandons craft in favor of impact is the hallmark of Zombie that was often duplicated but never replicated.
And then….nothing.
The album first of all, is too long. It is bloated with throwaway narrative tracks – six of them to be precise. This adds roughly five minutes to the total proceedings, which isn’t much in the grand scheme, but obliterates any sense of flow or pacing. Far too often, the listener is asked to stop their immersion to take in some ambient Pro Tools track or piece of esoteric dialogue.
In keeping with strange trends that don’t matter singularly but point to a perturbing trend overall, Zombie again chooses to write a song that does not feature common English language words in prominent sections of the chorus. His most famous of these was the single “Ging Gang Gong De Do Gong De Laga Raga,” and now he occupies the same space with “The Ballad of Sleazy Rider,” which showcases an even more nonsensical chorus than the title would suggest. At best Zombie is, for some inexplicable reason, trying to inject scat singing into metal, and at worst has become too complacent in his writing to bother putting together compositions with actual verbiage.
For all that, the worst sin, and perhaps the most damning thing that’s ever been said about a Rob Zombie project of any kind, is that it’s boring. There is no urgency, no hunger to the proceedings of “The Lunar Injection.” It seems sacrilege to even suggest, but this sounds for all the world like the album of an artist who is comfortable sitting on his laurels. The prominent single “Crow Killer Blues,” meanders without real direction or purpose. Even the irrepressible talent of guitarist John 5 seems throttled back – there is some evidence of his versatility in spots, but it is worth nothing that unlike Zombie’s previous album, John does not seem to merit a writing credit this time.
Zombie is, as far as his musical career is concerned, a prisoner of success. White Zombie changed the way we think about the presentation of popular metal, and theorized, whether through intention or accident, that metal could be beat-based rather than guitar-based. Rob Zombie, as a solo artist, forever raised the bar for the presentation of the music, both in the production and in the live setting. It’s been a long time since either permutation of Zombie has produced an album that resonates with any frequency remotely close to those hallmarks. Looping back to the top, the question is being begged – why is Rob persisting, and what is the intent? Only he knows the answer.
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