Somewhere in a corner of the White House, Tipper Gore is shaking
\nuncontrollably. One of her biggest nightmares when she was head of
\nthe P.M.R.C., Blackie Lawless and W.A.S.P., are back with their
\nsecond live set and ninth album,
\nDouble Live Assassins<\/i>. This album is sure to make Washington
\nwives faint with shock, make your parents turn away in disgust, and
\nmake the dog howl with pain. In short, it’s a great album.<\/p>\n
Their first live effort since
\nLive… In The Raw<\/i>, Lawless and crew are here in all their
\nblood and glory (or is that “gory?”) from their
\nK.F.D.<\/i> tour. While a good portion of their career is covered
\nin the sixteen songs that make up this two-disc set, it displays
\nthe power that W.A.S.P. has always had – and even emphasizes the
\nfact that Lawless is quite a good songwriter. Exhibit “A” to back
\nthis up: “Wild Child,” a song which loses a little bit in the
\ntranslation from the studio version, but not much.<\/p>\n
If a live setting does anything for W.A.S.P., it takes the
\nindustrial edges off some of the songs on
\nK.F.D.<\/i>, making them a little less scary than they sounded on
\ntheir studio conterparts. In one sense, this works to W.A.S.P.’s
\nadvantage; to my ear, their more all-out metal sound they made
\n(in)famous on songs like “Blind In Texas,” “Animal” and “L.O.V.E.
\nMachine” is a better fit. Still, it is nice to hear some of the
\nbetter selections from
\nK.F.D.<\/i> here, including “Kill Your Pretty Face” and “U”.<\/p>\n
Another thing that
\nDouble Live Assassins<\/i> accomplishes is it instills more of a
\nrespect for some of the latter-day material Lawless and his band
\nwas creating near the end of their first run as W.A.S.P. The
\nselections from
\nThe Headless Children<\/i> and
\nThe Crimson Idol<\/i> take on a whole new life here, and make me
\nwant to run back into the Pierce Archives and dust off my copies of
\nthese albums.<\/p>\n
There’s also no doubting that the musical partnership between
\nLawless and lead guitarist Chris Holmes is an amazing yin-yang
\nrelationship not unlike that of the Davies brothers of The Kinks.
\nThese two guys constantly feed off of each other, and push the
\nother to new musical limits in their genre. (Bassist Mike Duda and
\ndrummer Stet Howland, who also played on
\nK.F.D.<\/i>, do an incredible job here – Howland might be the
\nbest drummer W.A.S.P. has ever had.)<\/p>\n
Of course, it wouldn’t be W.A.S.P. if they weren’t offending
\nsomeone. Never mind the fact they’re a decade older now, Lawless
\nwill still send shivers up the Moral Majority’s spine… especially
\nafter I’ve read about some of the things he’s done on this stage
\nshow. (And is it sacrilege for me to mention that Lawless looks
\nlike a deranged version of The Crow on the album cover? Just a
\nthought…) If you’re easily offended, don’t bother picking this
\nalbum up – when you buy a W.A.S.P. album, you usually know what is
\nin store for you.<\/p>\n
The long-time fans could probably rattle off a grocery list of
\nsongs they wish had been included on
\nDouble Live Assassins<\/i>, but the simple fact of the matter is
\nthis is one of the better live albums out on the market – and the
\nlive album is the most difficult thing for an artist or band to
\nproduce. W.A.S.P. have masterfully pulled it off, and
\nDouble Live Assassins<\/i> is one album that will keep you up
\nlate at night until you’ve finished every last song – and then
\nyou’ll want to start with disc one again.<\/p>\n
This could be W.A.S.P.’s best effort yet, and
\nDouble Live Assassins<\/i> is one disc that belongs in your
\nshopping cart, in your CD player, and embedded in your head. It is
\none of the most pleasant surprises of 1998.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5899],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38682","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-w-a-s-p","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38682"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}