[ HALLOWEEN ]
GEFFEN
Hard rockers can add Rob Zombie's CD "Past, Present & Future" to their ghoulish Halloween repertoires.
A little mood music
Rob Zombie's compilation of
greatest hits is perfect for
a headbanger's Halloween
For tonight's Halloween entertainment, won't you please consider adding Rob Zombie to the mix?
You've got the perfect music and video package in his greatest hits compilation "Past, Present & Future." Even though it was released a full month ago, now's the time for Zombie's cartoon horror to liven up any costumed get-together -- that is, provided the hardest of hard rock music is already your cup of blood.
It's a solid career retrospective for one of rock's true showmen, the devil spawn of Alice Cooper, who himself pens an appreciation as part of the album's lurid packaging and even did a duet with Zombie (included here) in 1996 on the song "Hands of Death (Burn Baby Burn)" for "The X-Files" TV series soundtrack.
GEFFEN
"Past, Present & Future"
Rob Zombie
Geffen
I admit I lost touch with Zombie's more recent fare after his earlier hits "Thunder Kiss '65" (his ode to film exploitation master Russ Meyer) and "More Human Than Human." From 1992 to 1995, he was the frontman of White Zombie, a band that, during the late '80s, was one of the more entertaining bands in the New York rock/industrial underground before infiltrating the mainstream.
But experiencing the Zombie attack both visually and aurally put me in the proper holiday spirit. The companion music video DVD shows how directing his own videos (with the exception of "Thunder Kiss") prepared him to make his feature debut with the B-grade horror flick "House of 1000 Corpses." He also pays clever homage in a couple of the music videos, particularly "Living Dead Girl" -- influenced by "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" -- and "Never Gonna Stop (The Red Red Kroovy)," with its "Clockwork Orange" imagery.
Zombie (Robert Straker) became the Rasputin-like creation he remade himself to be in 1998, when he released his solo "Hellbilly Deluxe: 13 Tales of Cadaverous Cavorting Inside the Spookshow International." There are three never-before-released videos from that album on the DVD, including the concert-shot "Demonoid Phenomenon" that gives you a taste of the Zombie on-stage spectacle, and "Return of the Phantom Stranger," a stylized bit of full-tilt horror, complete with creepy cemetery and the walking dead.
GEFFEN
Seven of the 13 "tales" from "Hellbilly Deluxe" are also found on the CD compilation. Overlooked tracks like "Superbeast," "Dragula" (inspired by the TV "Munsters" hot rod), "Feel So Numb" and "Demon Speeding" shows how much Zombie refined his trademark sound of high octane-fueled headbanging bliss. Another overlooked braincrusher included on this collection is the early '94 track "Feed the Gods" from the "Airheads" soundtrack.
He's even dallied a bit in more danceable material with the mutant beats of "I'm Your Boogie Man" and, more memorably, "Brick House 2003" from the "1000 Corpses" soundtrack, where funk, rap and rock butt heads in a superfly collaboration among Zombie, Lionel Richie and rapper Trina.
The two new tracks that bring the collection to a close, "Two-Lane Blacktop" and "Girl on Fire," brings Zombie's comic-book vision full-circle. May his tormented soul continue to burn in eternal hellfire -- Enjoy!
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