Monday, October 26, 2009

Gorgeous Frankenstein - S/T - by The Sleaze

Being a lifelong Misfits fan, I can honestly say I don't think I've ever really blue balled quite so hard waiting for an album as I did this one. After Doyle's departure from the Misfits, I quite frankly ceased to give a flying shit about the band. Doyle's signature "crush your skull" guitar sound is really what made the Misfits what they were for so long. If you disagree with me, fuck you. Without Doyle, I knew the band would sound well..shitty as hell and guess what? They do. Abandoning the abomination Jerry Only has created, I found myself with a void of sorts in my scary little soul. A wet, sloppy gaping hole yearning to be filled. After a long ass wait, My prayers seemed to be answered! Or so I thought.

After a long break, The Godzilla of punk, Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein, would once again step his corpse crushing foot on stage again. Rolling
with former arch nemesis Glenn Danzig on the latest blackest of the black tour, Doyle joined Glenn onstage for an entire set of classic misfits songs. Religious, yes. Fucking shocked this even happened, absolutely. If you were lucky enough to catch this tour, Feel privileged and know that you witnessed history. Despite all the bullshit rumors floating around on the internet, this was the closest thing you will ever see to a classic Misfits reunion.

While touring with Danzig, Doyle announced he would be introducing his new project titled "Gorgeous Frankenstein". Again, excitement began to fill that sloppy hole inside. After learning also that Glenn was helping with this project, my hole overflowed. Seriously, It's fuckin Doyle! How can this possibly suck? With Doyle on guitars and doing the writing, he recruited Blitzkid bassist Argyle Goolsby and unknown vocalist Landon Blood. Finally releasing their self titled E.P., I grabbed a copy about as quick as a fat kid grabbing a twinkie.
I could barley put the CD in my fuckin stereo due to an adrenal overload. Disc goes in, heart racing, veins about to explode! Disc plays...... Tears fall.

This disc was further proof that god hates me. To what i refer to as the biggest tragedy in horror, Gorgeous Frankenstein is an eight song romp of pure shit. Allow me to explain. First off, i was hoping that the album would NOT be a rehashed Misfits album and on that front, the band did not disappoint. Doyle really set out to do his own thing here and I was grateful for that but this was still not what I expected. The music itself is way over saturated with blues influences making the music lag. The vocals are WAY under-mixed which probably ain't a bad thing seeing as Landon goes out of key often and has absolutely no pitch range whatsoever. I did some research on this guy to find out what he's done prior and where he came from. Surprisingly, I found nothing. I had later heard that Landon Blood was just some dude that Doyle lifted weights with and wasn't actually a musician. I have no fuckin idea if that's true or not but that was the rumor. judging from the vocals on the disc, wouldn't surprise me if it was true. Landon soon quit after the disc was released leaving Goolsby to take over vocal duties. Former Misfits drummer Dr. Chud has since been added to the line up. Let's stop here and review the tape shall we.

1. Gorgeous Frankenstein. The opening guitar riff is brutal as fuck leading into a distorted bass riff, the song opens with promise. The main riff in the song is solid but then drops to a start/stop blues-o-rama pile of shit. Then, a puddle of piss is added when the vocals come in. The lyrics are just fuckin silly.

2. Man or Monster. This song straight up sounds like something Rob Zombie wrote and threw away later. Another start/stop riff fest on the guitar leading into another epic fail when the vocals hit. sounds more like a bad White Zombie cover band on this one. Shitty lyrics again.

3. Devil Girl. A bass driven track with not nearly enough guitars. Again, the blues shit is way overplayed. At this point, i'm already having a hard time distinguishing the individual tracks. shit is starting to bleed together already.

4. Hell Angel. The verse in this one is pretty fuckin heavy. It fails when the chorus hits. Sounds like a straight jock from Danzig 2 or 3. Lame ass song title and lame lyrics again. This one had promise for a split second.

5. Reverse of God. No continuity to this fuck fest at all. A droll, sloppy pile of shit I can't even make out. Not sure what the point was at all with this one.

6. Mothernight. Sounds just like the first two songs to me. More dragging blues riffs with shitty lyrics and bad singing. All the tracks sound so goddamn similar it's getting hard to write anything different about them. fuck it, let's keep rolling.

7. Speed Witch. More like bag lady on a hoveround. They may as well have just put different lyrics to "Scarecrow Man" and called it a day with this one. Seriously, if your gonna jock it, don't be an under achiever. go for the gold.

8. Made in Hell. FINALLY! The only saving grace on this entire shit storm. This is more what I expected the whole disc to be like. Brutal, heavy as fuck Doyle kickin that monkey ass! Tons of guitars, tons of aggression. Vocals didn't even sound that bad on this. Good fuckin god, what the hell happened after they wrote this one?


Regardless of the massive disappointment with this release, Doyle is still my hero and I will continue to have faith that this band will one day flourish into the beast it should be. Getting up live and playing bad Led Zeppelin covers and jocking Misfits tunes is not cool. I expected that type of shit from Michale Graves and X-Ward but not from you. Although I will admit i'm not exactly certain what Gorgeous Georges actual role in the band is but all the eye candy In the world isn't going to compensate for shitty music. It must be said however that this project is something she and Doyle do together as a couple and truthfully, I think that's pretty fuckin cool. I will also admit that Goolsby is a far better vocalist than Landon Blood but not that much better. Get a solid, strong singer, write some good material and start over. I'll keep the faith.


The Sleaze-2009

2 comments:

  1. "LANDON BLOOD" was a musician out in Las Vegas, NV. He had amazing vocals but all of GF's vocals were coached to him to sound that way by Glenn. He never lifted weights with Doyle. Doyle recruited him when Brian Landon sent in a sample disc for Doyle and Glenn to listen to. They liked what they heard and asked him to come on board. Brian was put on a specific diet and drove to California every weekend to practice and record. After the music was recorded and they masked him in the music video, they kicked him out with no compensation. Nothing but a name. It broke his soul. He moved forward and had a son named Drake Von Landon in 2009. On June 5th, 2017.....Brian Landon Aka Landon Blood, passed away.

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  2. Specific diet? What was that? And this is not the first time these guys have used someone like that. That really sucks. Once upon a time I knew Brian. He was a real good guy. RIP.

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