Artist: "Rob Zombie"
Album: "Educated Horses"
Genre: Alternative Rock
Label: Geffen
Reviewer: Protoclown
Posted: 10/21/2008
Review: If you've liked Rob Zombie's previous solo releases, then Educated Horses starts off promising enough. And then Rob starts singing. I've noticed that throughout his career, Mr. Zombie has slowly gravitated from singing in the deep growl of the White Zombie days to a more nasally, high-pitched whine that is most pronounced on this new release. I should have known when I heard the title of the album that this would not live up to his previous efforts. "Educated Horses"? What the fuck does that even mean? It's not even funny or clever--it's just kind of stupid.
The music, while not nearly as disappointing as the vocals, doesn't live up to his previous work either. It's too repetetive (yes, I just called a Rob Zombie album "too repetetive"), and lighter than you'd expect for anything involving Rob Zombie. Songs like "Foxy Foxy" sound more like they belong on a Britney Spears or Avril Lavigne album than the latest Zombie release. The musical style of "17 Year Locust" seems a little more at home on a Zombie record--too bad it's so fucking annoying. Unfortunately I can say that about several songs on the album--instead of writing the same kind of catchy tunes he's known for, he just seems to be trying to annoy his audience with grating repetition.
The brightest musical spot on the album unfortunately happens to be one of the short instrumental filler tracks called "100 Ways". Well, unfortunately for Mr. Zombie, I can think of about 100 ways that this album could have been better, and one of them would have been to expand that little piece and turn it into a proper song. "Let it All Bleed Out" sounds a little more like his older material, where the music is decent enough and he harkens back somewhat to his trademark growl of old, but at that point it's just too little too late. "Death of it All" sounds like something you'd be more likely to hear at a Ren Faire being performed by a band of douchebags wearing jester hats than on a Rob Zombie album.
I'm certainly not the biggest Rob Zombie fan in the world, but I've enjoyed his post-White Zombie work well enough. Sure, it's not particularly deep and it's not exactly going to change your life, but he's written some catchy tunes that are just fun even if they're light on substance. But it's pretty obvious to me from the first minute of "American Witch" that Rob was just phoning this one in. It's not a terrible album or anything--it's just disappointing after his previous two. I've ripped his other solo albums to my iPod, but I feel like this one doesn't deserve to take up the small amount of space it would require. Maybe when I get a bigger iPod.
Overall rating:
(Scored on a 0.5 - 5 pickles rating: 0.5 being the worst and 5 being the best)
A lame title does make for a lame album. |