Review by Scream

Rob Zombie hits the shelves once again with a new version of Hellbilly Deluxe, labeled “Hellbilly Deluxe 2 – Noble Jackals, Penny Dreadful and the Systematic Dehumanization Of Cool”. It’s a mouthful for an album name. About just as much of a mouth-full as Rob Zombie’s clever and ‘cool’ lyrics are in this second installment under his ‘Hellbilly Deluxe’ series.

The average length of tracks on this album roughly ticks up to two minutes, leaving you with that ‘is that all?’ feeling after each track has finished.  His vocals remain un-altered and this had been the case since his White Zombie days.  I am yet to hear Zombie add more variety and show us some more vocal talent.

The album is more ‘rock’ than ‘metal’ in my opinion. I seem to get pretty confused when it comes to classifying his genre as pop-metal, glam-metal, ghoul /gloom–glam-hard rock or simply just metal. Who cares? Rob Zombie is respected among many metal heads and even sparked and ignited that metal flame within many non-metal heads. I can name twenty people off the top of my head that can’t stand ‘loud music’ yet they love Rob Zombie’s first solo album ‘Hellbilly Deluxe”. Especially classics such as “Dragula”. This is where Hellbilly Deluxe 2 falls in I suppose. The fans of the first version would definitely dig Zombie’s latest release.

Don’t get me wrong. Tracks like “Sick Bubblegum” and “Werewolf Women” are heavy. But the album overall lacks the very element most headbanging metal fans long for.

It’s a ‘cool’ album. And excuse me for systematically dehumanizing the word ‘cool’.

Score: 7/10 metal horns

[Rating:7/10]