It is well known that Danzig's last handful of releases didn't exactly live up to his former glory, so when his seventh album I Luciferi was announced as a welcome return to form I had a hard time not getting over-excited.
It's safe to say that I was perhaps more than a trifle disappointed. Sure, it seems that Glenn did listen to the complaints of his long-time fans and ditched the electronic production in favor of a more organic sound, and it's also clear that he has chosen to quite the experimenting and go back more to his roots regarding songwriting, but in no way can this album hold itself with his first four outputs.
While in essence most of the tracks on offer here vary from passable to good, they are somewhat let-down by the production itself - which for some reason sounds far too flat and lifeless, listen for example to Danzig's vocals which seem to lack all the power that he put on display in the past. Also the band itself doesn't have anything going for them at all and just lack the songwriting abilities and power that for the classic line-up with John Christ, Eerie von and Chuck Biscuits did have.
If you are a fan of Evil Elvis however (which I am) don't let that put you off, since there still is some enjoyment to be had from tracks like for example Kiss The Skull, I Luciferi, Naked Witch or Without Light, I Am and it certainly beats anything that he released the last six or seven years, but if you have never listened to Danzig before, I advise to steer clear and get Lucifuge or How The Gods Kill (respectively album II and III) instead.