W.A.S.P.
Golgotha
Napalm Records – 2015
While W.A.S.P. was one of my favorite bands in the 80’s and through their mid-90’s releases of The Neon Child Part 1 and Part 2, it has been quite a while since I really even bothered listening to the band in full.
I’ve heard bits and pieces of their most recent studio albums, but nothing that interested me. When you combine that with the formerly notorious wild frontman Blackie Lawless going all bat-shit crazy on both the political and religious fronts, it made for a sour taste at least in this fan’s mouth.
But something changed – at least a little bit – for me with the advance release tracks the band put out online ahead of the release of Golgotha.
For one thing, the music sounded fantastic. It was lively and aesthetically pleasing to the ear, so I had to grab the album and see what I thought of the entire new release.
The first thing I noted when reading the album’s liner notes was a brief essay from Lawless talking about the creative process that went into recording the CD. A badly broken leg helped delay the album for more than a year and provided more time to work on the material. In a lot of ways, that delay paid off.
I’m still concerned that the man who wrote “Blind in Texas”, “L.O.V.E. Machine” and “Animal (Fuck Like A Beast)”, the latter being a song he has vowed to never perform again, is changing far too much even for someone who likes to see artistic advancement in the bands I listen to. But in the interest of being as impartial as I can be with my review, I had to take a long hard look at this album. Lawless has claimed that lyrically, everything is written from the eyes of his faith. Whether you buy into this or not, for the first time in a long time, the lyrics are quite outstanding on a lot of the tracks on this disc.
The album kicks off with “Scream”, which is a fast paced rocker that fires up the listener right from the get-go. It begins a run of three straight songs that keep the energy high throughout each track.
“The Last Runaway” (see the Youtube clip below) was the first track most people heard online and it was what got friends of mine raving that it was the best W.A.S.P. song in years. I would have to concur, because the song is flat out fantastic with a strong sense of melody and very strong lyrically with passages like this:
“On borrowed beds of nails I wailed
And I’d lose control
So shamelessly so starved to be
Down on this orphan’s road”
It also helps that unlike other metal performers (this means you Dave Mustaine of Megadeth), Lawless still sounds like he can actually sing. The song “Shotgun” is another great rocking track, but once you get through those three songs, the album becomes a much harder road to hoe.
There are three songs that extend past the 7 minute mark but only the song “Slaves of the New World Order” is worthwhile. Lawless crushes whomever or whatever his target is in the lyrics and musically the song burns with heavy intensity. Unfortunately, the other two lengthy tracks are not nearly as entertaining. “Miss You” drags for pretty much the entire song and the vocal performance struck me as too overwrought in its execution. As for the title track (which you can listen to HERE), it just kind of meanders as the disc’s closing track. The religious bend to the lyrics is far more blatant on this cut and it really did nothing for me except make my teeth grind in frustration.
Of course, then you have songs like “Fallen Under” and “Hero of the World” which are also heavily influenced by Lawless’ faith and yet that song’s lyrics were fantastic.
I think it will be hard for those fans who grew up listening to W.A.S.P. in the 80’s to fully accept or adjust to this diametrically opposed version of Blackie Lawless. The band that did albums like The Crimson Idol and The Headless Children is a vastly different animal now. I’m one of those fans, but I’d be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that Golgotha is a solid album. After a long period of dissatisfaction, Golgotha is the best CD that W.A.S.P. has put out in years.
