Unknown Source, Spring 1991
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   He who doesn't know his heavy metal history is doomed to repeat it, an 
axiom that has been taken to heart by the music's fringe elements. Not 
wishing to follow innovators like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin down the 
road of self-indulgence, newer bands like Soundgarden, Danzig and Trouble 
walk a carefully trod line between reverence and dirrespect for the 
traditions of the past. In doing so, they manage to honoor the original 
intentions of the music far more than a band like Whitesnake, while at the 
same time making sure that heavy metal will evolve. Sometimes it seems more 
like mutation rather than merely evolution but after the fall-out, it is 
bands like these that are determinedto survive. Multi-headed musical 
monsters they may be, but if all heavy metal sounded like this, it just 
might get the respect it is beginning to deserve.
   Danzig's music had roots both in his hardcore beginnings with the Misfits
and the dark poetics of the Doors, and when it comes to the occult, the band 
makes Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden conpletely irrelevant. Because when he 
gets down to creating an aural counterpart to the thoughts raging in his 
head, one thing becomes immediately apparent: Glenn Danzig is one serious 
dude. Perhaps the finest songwriter ever to emerge from the depths of the 
hardcore underground, Danzig takes a literary approach to the art of 
songwriting that makes him unique among heavy metal musicians, but his 
greatest strength is his ability to do this without sacrificing the visceral 
appeal of the music. Beginning with his first band, the legendary Misfits, 
over a decade ago, Danzig has pursued the darker side of heavy metal, 
acknowledging the traditional but but always searching for something more. 
With his second band, Samhain, serving somethingof an intermediary role on 
the way to the sepulchral preoccupations of the band that carries his name, 
the man continued to create a legacy that while eluding the upper reaches of 
the music charts, made him a presence not to be trifled with in the metal 
underworld. Rick Rubin, whose name comes repeatedly when discussing the bands 
that are shaping heavy metal's future, helped Glenn make the changes necessary 
to transform Samhain into Danzig, a band that is finally able to deliver on 
the promise of Glenn's songs. Tracks like "Twist of Cain," and "Am I Demon," 
as heard on the band's Def American Records debut and seen on the band's 
shocking video memorial, are a cut above the average heavy metal fare. With 
an able-bodied line-up of similarly inclined musicians - drummer Chuck 
Biscuits, who seems to have played with every hardcore band that ever 
mattered including Circle Jerks, Black Flag, and DOA, bass player Eerie Von 
Stehlman, and guitarist John Christ - he may finally be able to wake the 
unthinking masses from the dead.