I can never forget my reaction to when I first heard White Zombie: refined rawness with lyrics that made no sense yet hovered on the edge of meaning.  Needless to say I was hooked.  The track in question was Supercharger Heaven from their Double Platinum album “Astrocreep 2000 – Songs of Love, Destruction and Other Synthetic Delusions of the Electric Head”.  There was something compelling about White Zombie, as they were undeniably different, and shared their love of cult movies in their music.

Like many people at the time, I was eagerly awaiting the follow-up to Astrocreep 2000.  Some felt that Super Sexy Swinging Sounds was merely a remix of Astrocreep, when it would have been more accurate to describe the CD as a re-envisioning.  Nonetheless, I was keen to listen to fresh White Zombie material, so you can imagine my crushing disappointment when White Zombie announced they were disbanding.

In many ways I can understand White Zombie’s reasons for ending on a high.  The band had accomplished everything they had set out to achieve with the success of Astrocreep 2000.  To continue as they were with the possibility of releasing weaker follow-up albums will have been a disservice to their legacy.

Rob Zombie chose to pursue a solo career, and create music as he originally envisioned.  I enjoy Rob Zombie's music just as much as White Zombie’s - his music is a different sound, as we do not have Sean Yseult's roaring base-line of Jay thrashing out chords on lead guitar.  Instead with Rob Zombie’s music we have a purer sound, as his imagination is unfettered and we can clearly see more horror film references in his music: from the Munsters in Dragula to A Clockwork Orange in Never Gonna Stop.

Rob’s career has continued his success from White Zombie, with his debut solo album Hellbilly Deluxe receiving strong reviews and populated with tracks that remain night club favourites.  And next year, after a twelve year wait, we are to finally see him play live again.  In the mean time, as a small taster of what we can expect next year, Rob Zombie will be appearing in issue 8 of Dominion.