Gods on Voodoo Moon

Before adopting the techno-metal attire that would come to suit them fairly well in the 90's, White Zombie were a noisier, simpler, punkier incarnation of their future selves. Noisy, psychedelic, alternative rock is admittedly not a favorite subgenre of mine, but there's a certain charm to the..."performance" that makes this unique and surprisingly listenable. Had this been released in '89, Zombie would have been shrugged off as another shitty trendwhore product of the grunge movement and would have remained unnoticed, but in 1985, at the height of the thrash movement, this style was clearly their intention from day one.

Just as his later albums would be hard to classify and describe, so is his debut. The spirit is punk, the point is horror, the riffing is surf, and somewhere in this chaos is the shades of actual metal. Some of the guitar parts would actually be borderline thrash riffs, if there was more than just an inkling of overdrive and not so many pedal effects (delay, flangers, the like). The bass provides a constant groove to complement the riffing and the schizophrenic semi-constant lead presence, all purposefully amateurish. Zombie's voice is catapaulted over all this, with a definite shriekiness unpresent in his later albums. In face, the style of this EP is so far removed from the major label albums that without proper initiation, this would seem like a completely different (and far shittier) band.

It may just be weird for weirdness' sake, but I like it. These guys were doing something different, clearly not caring whether anybody would even be able to stand their music or not. Though that stance isn't always admirable, White Zombie provided just enough substance to make it work.

For fans of stoner doom, psychedelic rock, or punk.