{"id":41836,"date":"2010-01-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/babylon\/"},"modified":"2010-01-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-04T00:00:00","slug":"babylon","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/babylon\/","title":{"rendered":"Babylon"},"content":{"rendered":"

I lost track of W.A.S.P. shortly after receiving reissues of their first releases a few years back. I didn\u2019t intentionally let Blackie Lawless, the only consistent member of the band, fall off of my musical radar screen. I think the reissues just took a lot out of me. I didn\u2019t like much of their material after The Last Command<\/i> and what I heard didn\u2019t excite me. It wasn\u2019t terrible material; it just wasn\u2019t what I wanted to hear. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

While W.A.S.P. has always been about being outlandish and doing things the way they want to \u2013 you can read about Lawless\u2019 philosophy on life in the liner notes he wrote for the aforementioned reissues \u2013 there has always been a glaring weakness: reliance on well-established themes that other bands have pursued. On Babylon<\/i>, that trend continues. Did we really need another song about being \u201cCrazy\u201d (track 1)? Did we really need multiple new songs about fire? On this release, you have the Deep Purple cover of \u201cBurn,\u201d the pseudo-ballad \u201cInto The Fire,\u201d and \u201cSeas Of Fire.\u201d <\/o:p><\/p>\n

What saved this release for me was the way in which Lawless transformed tired themes like craziness and fire and interwove them with apocalyptic references to the end of the world. Now I\u2019m feeling more interested in the band. Just as important, Lawless\u2019 vocals are still potent after all these years. His energy tames the frantic pace of opener \u201cCrazy\u201d into something that is compelling. He spits out a tale about someone needing to be crazy in order to love him, which is probably true. I don\u2019t think it is as compelling of an opener as \u201cWild Child\u201d (from The Last Command<\/i>) or \u201cI Want to Be Somebody\u201d (the opener the record label demanded as the first cut when they released this disc, but not what Lawless would call the record\u2019s \u201creal\u201d opener). That said, the in-your-face attitude anthem marks the territory that the band is going to cover. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

As a drummer, I immediately picked up on the thunderous tom-tom runs from Mike Dupke in all the right places. Lawless persists in writing lyrics that are deeper than they first appear. The entire CD deals with mortality, and \u201cLive To Die Another Day\u201d tackles that theme dead-on. Lawless sings in the chorus, \u201cI\u2019ll live to die \/ Die another day \/ Another place, another time \/ I\u2019ll live to die \u2013 Oh Lord I\u2019ll rise to life again \/ I will live to die another time,\u201d which raises the question: can a man really choose when they are going to die? Your faith, or lack of it, probably provides your personal answer.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why I like this release. There are questions raised about life, death, and what may or may not come after it. Lawless shies away from this theme in \u201cBabylon\u2019s Burning\u201d when he paraphrases the book of Revelation from the Bible and doesn\u2019t really ask any pointed questions \u2013 it\u2019s more of a description of a vision than his own personal revelation. Next comes a cover of Deep Purple\u2019s \u201cBurn\u201d with lots of Dupke drum fills. The band sounds excellent on \u201cSeas Of Fire,\u201d my favorite track. I wish this would have opened the release. \u201cGodless Run\u201d bares Lawless\u2019 soul as he sings, \u201cLong had I gone to be \/ A slave to my eyes \/ Lost at that cross I kneel \/ Amazing grace saved my life.\u201d The fun cover of Chuck Berry\u2019s \u201cPromised Land\u201d concludes the release on a less serious note.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

If you have not listened to this band in a few years, I\u2019d recommend taking Babylon<\/i> for a spin.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if W.A.S.P. never dies, judging from the energized performance by Lawless on this release.<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5899],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-41836","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-w-a-s-p","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41836","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41836"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}