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Danzig > Danzig 5: Blackacidevil > 1999, CD, Evilive (Slipcase, sepia cover, limited edition) > Reviews
Danzig - Danzig 5: Blackacidevil

And the Soul is Slowly Seeping - 55%

Twisted_Psychology, September 10th, 2022

Although 1996’s Blackacidevil was released just two years after the preceding 4, it showed Danzig in a dramatically different position. Rick Rubin’s influence had completely eroded with a change in record labels and all the musicians but the singer himself were out of the picture, resulting in him handling a good bulk of instrumentation with supplementary contributions from different players. The album also shows the group completely embracing the industrial elements that were merely hinted at on its predecessor, suggesting that it could be a natural extension of their evolution and prove to be the start of a strong second wind.

Yeah no, sorry, this sucks.

Like past Danzig openers, “7th House” immediately establishes the album’s tropes and gives the listener an idea of what to expect going forward. By that I mean, the track highlights just about everything that has gone wrong. The production is an absolute mess as the drum programming undermines the driving beat with a tinny, cluttered sound, the vocals are lathered in a distorted fuzz that renders the attempted hooks incoherent, and the hollow-sounding guitars are buried as to make the track lack any real sense of impact. It also doesn’t help that it just isn’t a particularly well-written song, coming off stock at best between all the “I’m gonna make you cum” yells.

On the bright side, there are some tracks that could’ve worked with some thorough tweaking. “Sacrifice” is the closest thing to a genuine hit here as the vocal contrasts are much coherent and the drum loop sets up the chorus rather nicely. “See All You Were” and “Hint of Her Blood” feel like scrappy demos of otherwise solid songs as their slothful crawl, filtered calls, and intrusive beats would’ve been better served with a more aggressive guitar presence. “Come to Silver” and the closing “Ashes” is another fascinating numbers that explore the softer side of this formula, the former featuring acoustic strums that reflect its origins as a song originally written for Johnny Cash getting drowned out by a Nine Inch Nails-style pounding and the latter is a much more balanced burnout.

But at the end of the day, much of this just isn’t constructed well enough to make these inherently bad ideas salvageable. This is perhaps best exemplified by the band’s reinterpretation of Sabbath’s “Hand of Doom,” which features new lyrics and a revamped song structure. Assuming you aren’t turned off by the edgelord necro-sexual lyrics, the soft/hard dynamics just feel more like an aimless rehearsal without the faster middle segment to counteract the main riff. Elsewhere, the title track and “Power of Darkness” build off the pointless drives of “7th House” while “Serpentia” is another track that loses a promising build to directionless repetition.

Danzig 5: Blackacidevil is a fascinating disaster that seems equally beset by ideas that could’ve been fostered by a better execution and ideas that just should’ve never happened to begin with. The move to a more industrial-informed sound makes sense if you squint and such a dramatic shift is commendable, by the lack of a solid lineup and inferior production really brings it down. Things would thankfully never get this bad again but this album reflects the lack of focus and other voices that has come to cripple Danzig for the rest of his career. Perhaps there are enough promising ideas and so bad, it’s good moments for the most fringe fans, but nobody else needs to hear this dumpster fire.

An Interesting (If Hit-and-Miss) Experiment - 55%

FullMetalAttorney, January 31st, 2011

Danzig's Blackacidevil was a huge departure for the man and the band, and by many it has been sharply criticized. But really, it doesn't deserve the bad reputation. And it certainly should never have been a big surprise change in direction.

Of course, Glenn Danzig started out as a formative influence on the punk world with the Misfits in the late 70's, and left that band to form his own punk band Samhain. These are still the only punk bands I listen to. It wasn't until 1987 that he got into metal. The first three albums from the band Danzig were stripped-down, simple heavy metal with a strong focus on Glenn as a powerful frontman. Yet each of these albums had its own character, and had forays into different styles (such as country). By the time of 4p, he was already experimenting with industrial elements (see "Cantspeak"). The band Danzig has always been about the man Danzig, and the man has always been about trying different things. In that sense, the fifth Danzig album should have been an entirely expected experiment.

And it's not bad, either. Throughout the album, industrial noises and rhythms seem to be the key, especially in the verses. The title track and "Power of Darkness" are really just noise without riffs, and they're not very compelling. But some of the choruses tend toward classic Danzig: Opener "7th House" and "Sacrifice" have some excellent (and unmistakably Danzig) riffs. Other tracks are industrial doom in character, with industrial noises on top but extended guitar chords in the background ("See All You Were") or slow, crunchy riffs ("Hint of Her Blood"). The latter doesn't work terribly well, because other than a change in drumming halfway through it doesn't seem to go anywhere. "Serpentia" starts out as merely industrial, but turns into this kind of industrial doom, and it happens to work well. "Come to Silver" is mellow, with acoustic rhythm guitar and electric leads, and it's pretty good--but it's actually better in the non-industrial version off The Lost Tracks of Danzig. The compelling Closer "Ashes" is based around piano, and recalls Glenn's Black Aria more than any of his band work.

The real highlight is the Black Sabbath cover "Hand of Doom". The crunchy industrial sound works really well to emphasize the ominous and hypnotic nature of the verses, and they throw in some great new guitar solos.

The original version doesn't really have a whole lot to recommend it ("Sacrifice" and "Hand of Doom" are the only essential cuts), but the bonus tracks on the 2000 reissue make it worthwhile. "Deeper" is a heavy and simple reworking of a song that appeared in the X-Files movie soundtrack, and has a killer How the Gods Kill style riff in the chorus. "Bleedangel" sheds Danzig's normal verse-chorus-verse structure and shows that, at some point, he figured out how to make a really eerie and interesting industrial song. On the downside, "Don't Be Afraid" is just stupid, and "Ashes" makes a much better closing track.

The Verdict: In all, it was an interesting experiment, even if it was very hit and miss. I give the original version 50%, and the 2000 reissue gets 60%.

originally written for http://fullmetalattorney.blogspot.com/

Danzig "Blackacidevil" - 94%

danbedrosian, November 26th, 2010

Glenn Danzig has been know to basically rewrite the rules of any genre he's ever done. When he was heavy metal he totally re-did everything. On this excellent effort he rewrote the industrial metal subgenre as we know it.

The album is very dark and seems to hold many sex-related songs and lyrics. I could imagine this album being played whilst a man is whipped in all leather with a dominatrix headbanging to it. The content is a step in a different direction considerering the previous releases and with consideration to the ones to come, the only Danzig album that holds lyrics to purely tread these kind of waters. Sex seems to play a major role in the albums content with tracks such as 'Serpentia', which sounds like it's about pure lust used with the allusion of serpents going with a biblical-lust connection here, 'Sacrifice', listening to the song itself is all the explanation, and '7th House', which I half imagine is about a brothel or makes a prostitution connection somewhere. The title track is about drugs listening to the song closely reveals this, also the name of the album/track itself sounds like a really nasty type of acid. The album also has sadder, melancholy songs which make every Danzig album complete. These songs are 'Come To Silver', originally written for Johnny Cash but turned down, has an infamous bluesy sorrow sound mixed with the industrial sound of this entire album making a new type of dark blues, and 'Ashes', on this track the guitars take a back seat and the piano owns the tune with a very slow and deep sounding piano that is accompanied with a howling wind sound that just makes your spine crawl with chills so bad you'll wanna curl up in Hell to warm up. One plus to this album is that Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell joins on several tracks such as 'Come To Silver', where he adds plenty of awesome bluesy solos, 'See All You Were', and the half rewrite, half Sabbath cover 'Hand of Doom' which has very grotesque lyrics instead of the infamous anti-heroin stance this song proposed under the hands of Ozzy and the Sabbath crew. The track 'Deeper', either found on The X-Files compilation or the 2000 re-issue of the album, contains vocals closer to the norm for Glenn, a very nice beat, and a heavy guitar track to join in the stop-go-stop of the song.

I do find very few flaws with the album. To start was the original cover art. I own the much better looking 2000 re-issue which seems to better fit the atmosphere of the album. Another is the vocal effects on 'See All You Were' which totally hide the lyrics in the track. I had to look up the lyrics to really understand what was being said. One flaw is 'Don't Be Afraid' with it's terrible vocal effects which can make anyone debate whether words are actually being formed or mumbling is present. To my surprise 'Don't Be Afraid' actually had lyrics which I had to, once again, look for to see what they were. But, I digress, the programming on 'Don't Be Afraid' is quite catchy. 'Hint of Her Bleed" is a good song but at times it does seem to drag on and other times it seems like it ends pretty quick. Other than these few things I find nothing wrong with the album.

This album changed industrial metal for me. This album should be a new standard for industrial metal. It takes industrial metal to a new level. My recommendation is to check this album out whether you like are looking for some good industrial metal or giving this a first, or maybe even another, chance. You don't have to like the player or the game to really enjoy this album.

Unique, Puzzling, Not For Everyone - 80%

The_Scrab, April 3rd, 2010

Many people have attempted to label this album, and I've yet to hear any sort of tag that really fits this recording properly. People have thrown around terms like, "industrial", "electronic", "avant-garde", as well as less flattering labels as "a steaming pile of horseshit". I can understand why all of these labels have been thrown around, but I don't feel like any of them really sum up this album in an accurate way. Besides, what's in a label anyway?

I can certainly understand, if not wholly agree with, most of the flack that this album has received over the years. A radical departure from the Danzig of old, this album sees our diminutive hero tackling an array of electronic samples, post-punk revivalism, and sludgy, distorted doom metal. Fans of earlier albums found themselves lost in an ocean of conflicting and varied influences and ideas, and their first reaction was to hit the eject button (or, considering the original artwork, trashing it right then and there. buy the reissue, more tracks, much better artwork). It's an understandable reaction, but I've found, that with a few repeated listens, that there is a multitude of musical gems buried in the fuzz of this record's production.

At it's core, it's important to remember that this is still a metal album. It's an experimental one, it's an alternative one (not shitty mainstream alternative), and it's one that's as hard as diamond to initially enjoy, but it's still chock full of crushing doom riffs. They're not always played on a guitar, but this has to be one of the bleakest, sludgiest albums that has ever been put to tape. The lyrics, while kinda self important, are bleak, and at times horrifying. Danzig has buried his trademark howl under layers of distortion and fuzz, and while some hate this, I feel it serves as an additional enhancement for his already sorrowful, pained wailing. Say what you will, but the countless vocal overdubs, effects, and dreary harmonies are what really make this album, succeeding in being catchy, heavy, and artsy all at the same time.

The instrumentation on this album is hard to gauge, because there isn't all that much of it. Jerry Cantrell shows up for a few guest solo spots, and does a fine job without infringing on the artistic integrity of the experiments, but most of the other instruments are handled by Glenn himself. He doesn't do a bad job, but he isn't out to prove his virtuosity on any given instrument. What he dose do a good job of though, is arranging and creating the various effects used on each track. The production on this album is dense and detailed, and while single minded, creates a morbid atmosphere that perfectly suits each and every track. From the upbeat electronic groove of "7th House", and "Power of Darkness", to the slow dirges of "Ashes", all the way to the bleak balladry of "Come to Silver" and the sadistic implications found in "Hint of Her Blood". The album starts to run together if you're not paying attention at points, but the production experiments are by and large a success.

There are a couple of songs that don't really work for me on this album, as there are on most Danzig albums. "Don't be Afraid" is pretty much a waste of time and effort by sitting through, and the rewritten lyrics on the Black Sabbath cover "Hand of Doom" are vulgar and unnecessary (though the cover itself sounds pretty good).

Overall, it's a tough album to crack, and it's definitely not for everyone. But if you can stomach a little experimentation and a little electronic influence, it's an album that's full of intriguing and engaging musical experimentation.

Soundtrack to Danzig's Mid-life Crisis - 75%

halfassed, January 6th, 2008

An important thing to realize about this album is that it was reissued in 2000 with 3 extra tracks, all of which are pretty good. The title of the reissue was changed to Danzig 5: Blackacidevil and the cover art was dramatically modified (and improved).

This album is highly experimental and incorporates various musical styles including industrial, techno, electronica, alternative rock, and noise. Unfortunately Danzig’s experimentation, while interesting at times, is somewhat unsuccessful. Most Danzig fans will probably consider this his worst album. A major problem is that Danzig electronically distorts the sound of his voice on several tracks. The tracks that are least experimental are the best. I recommend downloading the following songs: Come to Silver, Sacrifice, Ashes, and Hand of Doom.

Despite its flaws, blackacidevil is not as bad as some claim. It is the kind of album that becomes increasingly enjoyable over time. Unfortunately, most Danzig fans probably won’t want to listen to it a second time because it is very different. After listening to this album several times the only songs that I don’t enjoy and wish were omitted from the album are Serpentia and Power of Darkness. If you are an open-minded person, and a fan of Danzig, you just may warm up to blackacidevil - if you allow yourself to listen to it more than once.

I guess it has it's moments... - 43%

Madman, August 10th, 2003

Ok, Glenn makes a retarded move and takes the band industrial. Why? I have no real clue. He was doing well at what he did and created a great album in "4p" a few years prior. The only thing I can think is that Glenn decided to go with the trends at the time and follow Nine Inch Nails. Unfortunately Glenn doesn't do that good of a job of it which makes the album even more disappointing.

There are 4 exceptional songs here with the rest being rather bland. It's too damn techno!!! Why Glenn had to use programmed drum beats, loops, and samples I really don't know!!! It's very aggravating to listen to sometimes cause you know Glenn can do so much better.

Opening track "7th House" is pretty upbeat and has some decent parts to it that make it worthwhile. The only single from the album "Sacrifice" is probably the only song on here I'd say is actually worthy of the Danzig name being associated with it. It's pretty upbeat and has a decent vocal to it. "Come to Silver" is a good song that was originally written by Glenn for Johnny Cash but Cash rejected it. So Glenn took it, added some programmed beats to it and voila! We have a decent melancholy song on the album. The final song "Ashes" is quite melancholic, it kind of reminds me of "Let it be Captured" from "4p".

Bottom line: STAY AWAY!!! Just download these 4 songs and forget the rest even existed.