Unknown Source, Summer 1992
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By Bob Mack

DANZIG
Danzig III: How The Gods Kill
Def American

   Too goofy to be taken seriously as regular rockers but not goofy enough 
for the coartoon metal crowd, Danzig founders on the shoals of formula with 
its third album.
   On the last album, Danzig II: Lucifuge, the admixture of Elvis, Jim 
Morrison, and Robert Johnson was almost as intriguing as it was preposterous. 
This time around the song titles are scarier, the patented executive 
production of Rick Rubin is thuddier, and guitarist John Christ's Sabbath 
Bloody Sabbath-esque riffs are better. Nevertheless, one can't help feeling 
that vocalist Glenn Danzig is just going through the (e)motions.
   When Danzig boasts that "I can make a young girl lay down for me / because 
I'm evil" on "Heart of the Devil," I don't doubt him. Then again, shivers 
don't exactly run up my spine either. It's more like my eyeballs roll back in 
my head. Of course it may be a joke - why else would a comic-book-collecting 
geek born Jersey make references to roots caked in Mississippi mud on "When 
Dying Calls?"
   Either way, the bottom line is that Danzig lacks any of the dynamic 
arrangement, bluesy acoustic guitar, and hence, variety of its predecessor. 
There's one decent double-time jam on "Left Hand Black," and the ballad 
"Sistinas" is the best Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark song since OMD's 
1984 LP, Junk Culture. Aside from that, Danzig is on the Dr. Strangelove tip. 
That is, the pickins is slim.
   When I kid, hippies pointed to Janis and Jimi as examples of what happens 
when you take downers with alcohol. Someday the sages will point at Danzig 
and murmur a similar warning about the hazards of mixing steroids with 
Brylcreem.