The Devil's Rain

It has been a long time coming ... almost a decade really.  The Misfits released an album of all new (mostly) material last week.  The Devil's Rain, named after that Shatner movie I've written about on The Last Picture Blog.  Awesome cover art from that artist who did all the Marvel Zombies covers.

With any new Misfits release, however, comes a small bit of dread.  I've been a Misfits fan for over half my life.  I've hung out with Mo and Doyle.  I gave them stuff to use in their lawsuit with Danzig.  I still have my Doyle Fan Club card (handed to me by Doyle).  I'm Member 00171.  I used to call them just to chat.  They gave me their cassette release of Kryst the Conqueror.  Dr. Chud, who came later, gave me a Sacred Trash release.  I blew off getting flown to Los Angeles for an interview with Korn to interview the Misfits instead.  Favorite release?  Legacy of Brutality.  I used to sing Misfits songs to my daughter to put her to sleep.  She's grown up with them.  I'm not just a casual fan.  But let's face it, Fiends, we all know the hesitation that accompanies a new release.  All the line-up changes.  The misguided songs.  The in-fighting.  The wrestling. It is sometimes like a soap opera.

I was excited about The Devil's Rain.  The cover itself gets the blood boiling.  I bought it (no freebie here), and then I hesitated to play it.  A day or two or three, actually.  Afraid that what I would hear would not please me.  Now, I know the band can't do another Legacy ... or Earth A.D..  Nor would I want it to.  But I feared a serious stumble. 

It's not a serious stumble.  There are some missteps, and it is bound to irritate people who think the Misfits died when Danzig did Samhain, but this release is a natural progression for a band that has been influx since the 1980s.  Perfection?  No.  Solid?  Definitely.  More solid than it should be given the circumstances. 

I'm not going to do a breakdown of every song.  I figure that is pointless and best left to people who write reviews solely for Amazon.  I will, however, say, that when you hear a song like "Cold In Hell" or "Jack the Ripper," you know you are in Misfits country.  The landscape is a bit different, but it still feels like home. 

I won't go into some of the more obvious problems, either.  Bad makeup choices and some lackluster singing in spots speak for themselves.  I'm also not going to compare this to Misfits of old, which if many of you remember, featured some line-up changes, as well.  What I will say is something that every Misfits fan can understand.

Gone are the days of old, and that's okay.  Had this release come from any other band it would be worthy of a few listens and then brought out only once a year or so.  This is the Misfits, though, and at this point anything that isn't a total disaster is a godsend.  We will listen to it enough to make the songs stick in our heads, and we will grow to love some of it, and skip the rest.  It could be far worse, and we know it.  The lyrics are pure Misfits.  Some of the hooks recall the bygone days.  The subject matter is what we've come to expect.  It's a class reunion, and while everyone has gone on to different things, they still seem oddly familiar.  More importantly, they're still fun to be around and it's comfortable to be there.  Do I sound like an apologist?  I sure as hell do, but I'd rather be an apologist for the Misfits than any other band any day of the week.

Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: Clicking on a link may earn me some cash, and as noted earlier, I bought this ... as did many a Misfits fan.

Orgy of One

While waiting to see when/if some friends would ever arrive (and I would be lucky if it were an "if"), I popped in a tape I hadn't listened to in a long time.  Ogry of One's ... From Outer Space.  There's a good chance that most of you reading this have never heard of this one-man band named after a Meatmen song.  If you're a Misfits fan, though, you should be familiar or make yourself that way.

The product of Doug Evil (who is now a great photographer out of Pittsburgh and did the logo for my old band JFK's Head -- yes, he's also an excellent artist), Orgy of One came about due to his fascination with the Misfits.  I had received a tape to review, and we quickly started writing.

... From Outerspace is a cassette-only release.  Four songs.  All of them Misfits cover tunes.  "London Dungeon," "Bullet," "Last Caress," and "Mommy ... Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?"  All of those are classic Misfits, and this one-man band does them proud.  Released on Pernicious Misanthrope Records (year unknown), Evil gave away the tapes for the price of postage, unable to sell them for the obvious reasons.  (He once asked me if I thought he would get in trouble.  I knew Mo and Doyle of the Misfits and told him I thought they'd enjoy hearing it and gave him info on how to contact them.)

Listening to this tape brought back some memories.  Good memories.  I remembered some of my contacts with Evil, too.  He was a good guy, and it looks like he's gone on to some great things.  I wonder if he ever pops this tape in and relives some old times?  Probably not.  I rarely go back and read the things I wrote from so long ago.  Either way, I'm glad I still own the tape, and it definitely isn't going up for sale.

Strange Urges for Strange Projects

If you're a fan of the Misfits, the name Kryst the Conqueror is probably familiar to you.  The band was essentially Jerry Only and Doyle (joined by Jeff Soto and Dave Sabo) doing metal songs with a religious theme.  I was given the cassette by the brothers when I got to meet them in their shop in New Jersey.  Expecting to hear a Misfits-like project at the time, I was a bit stunned by how metal it sounded.

Earlier today, for no apparent reason, I had the urge to listen to the cassette.  I hadn't played it in years, and I can't remember any of the songs, but for some reason it seemed like a good idea to pull it out and give it some fresh ears.

Unfortunately, life distracted me, and I ended up listening to some bootleg live Samhain instead.  It wasn't Kryst the Conqueror, but I think it scratched that itch for the time being.


I've always been puzzled as to why Kryst the Conqueror had to be such a radical departure from the Misfits.  At the time it came out you could say it was because the Jerry and Doyle wanted nothing to do with the Misfits sound and decided to go a radically different direction, but time would prove that to be wrong.  You could, if you believe Wikipedia, say that the brothers (Jerry and Doyle, in case you aren't familiar with the history of the Misfits) thought this band would be an almost counter message to what Danzig had done since the Misfits disbanded.  (Wikipedia states that Jerry found Danzig's later music to be "Satanic," something that was never brought up with me in my dealings with them.)  Either way, you can't argue that Kryst the Conqueror was about as different from the Misfits as you could imagine the brothers getting while still keeping a guitar-heavy rock sound.

As it stands, Kryst the Conqueror is another interesting side note to the history of the Misfits, like Dr. Chud's Sacred Thrash and Gorgeous Frankenstein.  It's not the Misfits and clearly isn't meant to be, but it's also not anything you would expect out of anyone even remotely associated with that historical band.


Now I really want to find that cassette just to see how well it has stood up through time.  My guess?  Not nearly as well as the Misfits have.