Release Date: 1 January 1992
Song Count: 14
Rating: 6.8/10
Description:
It is the day of Halloween as of writing, and since I've been aware of this day arriving, I wanted to listen to an album that could match the energy of the holiday for when the time comes - and that time is now. White Zombie is a very well-known groove and industrial metal band frontrun by Rob Zombie, an absolute star in the scenes of horror media in terms of both films and especially music, so I figured now than ever was the perfect time to delve into the discography of the band that practically kickstarted his rise to fame.
Possibly the most well-known album of the band, La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume 1 features an hour's worth of songs that both start off and sum up what was to follow for the general sound of the music Rob Zombie involves himself in - a high-energy, gritty, rhythmic and almost catchy sounding type of metal music unlike the work of no other. The foundations for this successful formula is laid in these songs, making them partially feel like almost more primitive and dated versions of songs and albums that were released afterwards by the band as well as Rob himself. This set of grooves and tracks are occasionally interrupted by around three 20-second long interludes of scrambled radio sounds that act as bridges tying the album together in a way that resembles genres the band takes inspirations from - horror and thrillers.
If there is a nitpick to be made with these tracks, however, it would be that while they attempt to achieve enjoyability with a combination of melodicism and approachability, musical weight and the ability to keep the listener's intrigue to lead them through their progression, variation in sound within the tracks becomes rather neglected and limited, causing the effect of entire songs to feel like a particular set of melodic and rhythmic samples looping around over and over without it leading to a reasonable conclusion. This problem gets remedied significantly in the following works from years afterwards, but it is striking enough here to lower the memorability of the otherwise rich amount of musical integrity and identity the songs have.
While far from my favourite album under the Zombie umbrella, it was a cool insight into how the signature style of music present within almost all of the later albums and works came to be. One can tell that it lays the important groundwork for those albums to truly flourish and utilise their full potential - in other, less articulate words, La Sexorcisto walked to Hellbilly Deluxe could run, and it certainly deserves a high level of respect for that. It is also overall a classic and a more than decent listen, especially for fans of rock and metal music.