Saturday, April 19, 2014

Danzig - Long Way Back From Hell



So yesterday I happened by The 7th House, the Official Fansite for Danzig. There I found news that there are now five tracks recorded for an upcoming Danzig album. This is not the long-talked about covers album, which is apparently finished and due to fall from hell straight into our hands any time now. No, this is from the next Danzig proper album. Now, I'm not going to tell you I dig the last few Danzig records as much as I dig the first few, but I will tell you that Danzig 7: I Luciferi is in my top four of his soon to be ten regular release albums, and that's saying something because John Christ, Eerie Von and Chuck Biscuits are not on that album and previous to its release and my eventual digestion of it (thanks always to The Goatchild for that) I never would have thought it possible that one of those post-original line up records could earn such a hardcore place in my heart. But it did, and that record along with tracks like 1000 Devils Reign, Skull Forrest and Black Angel, White Angel from Circle of Snakes (Danzig 8) and Rebel Spirits, Deth Red Moon and On a Wicked Night from Deth Red Sabaoth (Danzig 9) prove the man can still write some absolutely killer tracks.

To celebrate the news I felt inclined to post the first Danzig song I ever heard, Long Way Back From Hell - still one of my favorite ever tracks by this guy. Back around the time this was released I had no idea who Glenn Danzig was, but in the early 90's my ever-vigilant WXAV 88.3 St. Xavier's University introduced me to a ton of great music. I heard this song while driving in the car with my mom and I remember immediately falling in love with the whole dark tone/blues howl going on. But as was the problem with radio back in the pre-internet days, if you got from point A to point B before the DJ came on to tell you what they'd just played you might well miss your chance to hunt it down. That's exactly what happened in this instance, and it wasn't until sometime Junior year when Jay Stanek ("Did you know Bruce Dickinson was a history major?") lent me Danzig 1 and I heard the opening 'Ah-yeahah' of Twist of Cane that everything came together full circle and I was finally able to worship at the dark altar of Danzig. Previous to that they were just a group on a friend's older brothers t-shirt that kinda freaked me out, circa 1988.

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