Review Summary: More Zombie Than Zombie: Part 1 (The Agony)
The relationship between White Zombie and lead singer Rob Zombie’s solo career as entities tends to be overlooked in a certain sense. In a way similar to King Diamond, Danzig, or Alice Cooper, Rob has conflated his own name to be as prominent as the band itself and the shared MTV-friendly trash horror image encourages this exaggerated connection. But when you get to the music itself, White Zombie ultimately stands on its own with our journey fueled by a more collective outlook.
1995’s Astro Creep: 2000 No I’m Not Typing All That is a groove metal flashpoint that sees the transition from the end of White Zombie and Rob’s solo beginning happen in real time. As a White Zombie album, its tightness and infectious earworms are a culmination of their laborious decade-long development while courting the sort of mainstream acceptance they had to pretend they were too cool to want. On the flip side, its heightened accessibility and morbidly bouncy aesthetic makes it easy to regard as a sort of prequel album for Rob.
The hyper-pervasive single “More Human Than Human” illustrates the latter attitude to its most bombastic extent. The industrial undercurrents that had been gradually creeping up in recent years are on full display here with an attempt to replicate the heavy erotica of Nail Inch Nails’ “Closer” with enough chugs behind the programmed drums to remind one of those metal undercurrent. It’s dumbed down just enough to see why Rob has it on his solo sets to this day yet the guitar squeals and thumping bass are more appealing than the vocals.
This sort of warped jubilation continues as you get into the meat of the album itself. The two “Electric Head” tracks seem poised to play out like stadium remixes of “Thunder Kiss ‘65,” “Part 1 (The Agony)” setting the tone with a hard-driving rhythm, simple but sturdy guitar chugs, and crowd chant-friendly vocal lines that “Part 2 (The Ecstasy)” pushes to raunchier ends. “Super Charger Heaven” and “I, Zombie” are fast-paced burners with an old school brashness beneath the polished veneer.
And with that, the heart of the band endures despite the surface flash and gets to shine without getting too dumbed down. So many of these grooves would fall flat without the rhythmic thrusts of bassist/cofounder Sean Yseult and The Cult/Testament drummer John Tempesta. Jay Yuenger’s guitar work also remains impassioned despite the simpler approach, the leads and solos throughout have a wailing urgency while the riff makeup maintains those close ties to borderline stoner grooves.
As a result, much of the album hits much more of a grungy alt metal than the industrial inclinations would suggest. Tracks like “Creature Of The Wheel,” “Grease Paint And Monkey Brains,” and “Blur The Technicolor” dwell in a sludgy quagmire somewhere between Alice In Chains, Corrosion of Conformity, and Melvins with trudges ear-catching enough to stay coherent. Even when things get quieter, “Real Solution #9” and “El Phantasmo And The Chicken-Run Blast-O-Rama” (*** me, these titles) bring a psych-hip hop edge to creepy effect. It all culminates with the band’s full climactic surrender to the doom majesty of the closing “Blood, Milk And Sky.”
Astro Creep: 2000 isn’t a flawless album but its unique blend of influences working in conjunction with an appealing mainstream surface warrant a classic status. Whether you see it as the last White Zombie holdout or Rob Zombie’s origin story, it can be regarded as the strongest creative work of all the musicians involved. As with plenty of mid-nineties albums, you can occasionally feel some length bloat though a fifty-minute runtime is hardly egregious for the era. Even when the band is “selling out,” that stoner-ish psychedelic groove metal is nigh impossible to replicate.
