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W.A.S.P. - The Neon God Part II - The Demise


*
=Staff's pick

Never Say Die
Resurrection
The Demise
Clockwork Mary*
Tear Down The Walls
Come Back To Black*
All My Life
Destinies To Come (Neon Dion)
The Last Redemption*


Genre Heavy Metal
Blackie Lawless
Vocals
Tracks 9
Blackie Lawless
Guitar
Runningtime 46 Min.
Darrel Roberts
Guitar
Label Noise Records
Blackie L./Mike Duda
Bass
Release 22 Sept. 2004
Stet Howland
Drums
Country USA
Blackie Lawless
Keyboards
Similar artists ---

The Demise comes as the second part in the Neon God saga, where the first part was released earlier this year. And with the first album we discovered that Neon God was not to match with the mighty Crimson Idol (1992) concept album, so could a second part really provide us with something new?

It starts with a typical W.A.S.P. anthem in the track Never Say Die (no, its not the old Black Sabbath classic), with driving guitars and a fast pace accelerated by Blackie's raw voice. Part II goes up and down in quality along the way but never really loses the momentum as it did occasionally on part I. It has a steady ground for all of the songs up until that the album is closed with the epic number in this story, in form of The Last Redemption. And the comparisons with Crimson Idol comes jumping straight out once again. Being a long and epic track that holds most of the musical elements used earlier, it is a good summary of the entire musical highlights on the album that holds most of the musical themes running through The Neon God.

If Part I felt like it somewhat had reused ideas from Crimson Idol, this one feels like reused ideas from Part I - talk about being a friend of the environment with the double recycling from Blackie. The themes that ran along Part I can be found here as well, naturally, but it is too much of recycling as many parts are hardly moderated at all. And if it hadn't been for the fact that is actually the last part of a two part concept album it would just have been silly.

Musically The Demise provides you with absolutely nothing new, and had it not been for the story, it would almost be completely useless. There are two ways of looking at this second Neon God album. Either as an album on its own where it is simply repetition and because of that the rank gets lower with Part II. Or as part two of a two album set that completes the story and listening to both of the albums in a row after one and another, it actually becomes a quite mighty and long moment of listening.

But in the end, couldn't it have been reduced to fit on one album, or as a 2 CD disc-set released at the cost of a normal CD? In total the both albums has a total running time of something like 98 minutes, and to reduce the albums in time with 18 minutes for it to fit on just one disc does not seem like it would have been an impossible mission.

See also review of: Golgotha , Babylon , Dominator , The Neon God Part I

Production
Vocals
Compositions

4

8

5

 
Summary



5 chalices of 10 - Thomas

Related links:

www.waspnation.com