New Release Friday: Rob Zombie Unveils ‘The Great Satan’

ROB ZOMBIE: THE GREAT SATAN

SCORE: 85/100

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A sixty-one year old Rob Zombie shows the world that he can still rock on 'The Great Satan', his eighth full-length album as a soloist and his first in five years.

Despite being a modern release, Straker uses his classic sounds and revisits aspects that have become signatures of his long running career, creating striking metal tracks that are even heavier than expected - it's a hugely headbang-worthy project with a bold opening and his horror influences shining through, and it manages to be an even better album than expected, showing that he has very much still got it in him to create harsh metal tracks so many decades into his career. 

Mike Riggs returns on guitar for this album, marking the first project since Straker's 2001 album 'The Sinister Urge' to feature his guitarwork; this comes alongside him performing as Straker's guitarist for the upcoming Freaks on Parade tour with co-headliner Marilyn Manson, and this album paints a striking picture of the energy that he will bring with him on tour - with a nonstop sense of energy and livelihood that feels like he's just getting started, and he's got more hell to show the world before he's off that stage. 

This isn't just another modern rock record that is washed out and overplayed, this is a rock record that showcases a legend in their element, using aspects of both old-school industrial metal and alternative metal to create one of the best metal projects of the last five years. 'The Great Satan' is exactly what any Rob Zombie fan could've possibly wanted from a new album, and he knocks his sound out of the park with a consistent, nonstop energy fest of an album that is truly infectious and captivating from the minute it kicks off. 

Rather than creating something focused on modern sounds, Straker created something that sounds like his old self - it's true to the sound and style he has spent decades fine-tuning, and his intense vocals still sound the same as they did even on his debut. The album is fast-paced and incredibly sharp, and everything comes together into one massive punch of a project.