Greetings, boys and ghouls, it's time for another demonically delightful look into the morbid melodies and gruesome grooves of your favorite undead superstar, Rob Zombie.
Between writing and directing his own videos and feature films, drawing all his band's art and t-shirts, designing a theme maze for Universal Studios and even devising and performing his insane live shows, it seems this Zombie never sleeps.
"American Made Music to Strip By" is not a new album, but a remix of his 1998 effort, "Hellbilly Deluxe." It features 12 tracks of electronic mayhem laced with horror movie music. Zombie also lets a number of diverse artists take a crack at reworking his songs.
What emerges is a decayed potpourri of hit-or-miss metal with programmed twists. A few tracks actually improve on the limitations of "Hellbilly Deluxe" songs, but some weak links prevent it from being an improvement on the previous album.
Some tracks are wild departures from their source material, such as "What Lurks on Channel X," which relies heavily on drum and bass and could have been recorded at a D.C. rave. The "Sin Lives Mix" of "Demonoid Phenomenon" takes an already heavily electronic song and ups the ante by muting the guitars and adding heavier techno beats.
The first of two "Superbeast" remixes feature an unusual heavy house beat combined with newly-integrated synthesizers and sound effects. The low guitar volume and altered harmony create an inconsistent atmosphere and make the second remix by Nine Inch Nailer Charlie Clouser near the end of the album seem more appealing. Ironically, his version stays much closer to the muscular guitar-heavy album version and only alters the drums.
Clouser's other two remixes are likewise effective. "Dragula," previously featured on "The Matrix" soundtrack, is a prime example of how to break down and rebuild a song so that it is not merely a numbing regurgitation but a decent, original song.
Putting celebrity remix artists at the control panel does not guarantee a good song though, as German über-rock group Rammstein proves. It transforms Zombie's catchy "Spookshow Baby" into a riff-heavy dirge that sounds suspiciously like one of Rammstein's early songs. They simplify Zombie's effort effectively and keep the tempo unpredictable, but the lack of originality is overwhelming.
God Lives Underwater is much more successful with its fluid version of "How to Make a Monster." The track, formerly a throwaway, actually stands on its own here. The new melody sounds like digitized cross sections of classic Hammer film soundtracks and the sound effects vary from digital burps to spacey keyboards.
Each song is given its own unique identity with a strange remix title, the most amusing one belonging to the "Tuesday Night at the Chop Shop Mix" of "Phantom Stranger." Unlike previous monster movie references, some of the remixes are named after hideous underground exploitation movies such as "Ilsa, She Wolf of the S.S." and "Porno Holocaust."
The shift toward sexual explicitness also is reflected in the album's non-Wal-Mart friendly artwork. Zombie relies less on comic monsters and zombies here and more on naked women with blue skin, intense concert photos and heartwarming catch phrases such as "Go baby go!" and "Get it on!"
This is a much better remix album than White Zombie's 1996 serving of sonic tedium and monotony, "Supersexy Swinging Sounds." "American Made Music to Strip By" provides more than enough catchy hooks and memorable twists to set it severed head and shoulders above the most recent techno-fied rock offerings.
Grade: B+
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