We have a doorman in our building named Eli who -- if I had to guess -- couldn't be more than nineteen or twenty. Some time ago, Eli took notice of my affinity for stoopid punk and metal bands (invariably due to my somewhat embarassing collection of increasingly ill-fitting t-shirts), and regularly tries to engage me on the newer stuff that he likes (largely unlistenable garbage like Slipknot, Avenged Sevenfold and Hatebreed). We've exchanged the odd mix cd (I was incredulous to learn than he'd never heard of the Bad Brains), and lately he seems to have latched onto the latter, more embarassing era of Danzig. While I leant him some of the more worthy Danzig albums (basically the first three), I earnestly informed him that he'd be better off forsaking the little man's comparatively recent work in favor of his first band, The Misfits. This prompted me to dig out the album in question and exhume the following thread I posted on ILM back in January of 2004.
Oh sure..there were punk bands before them. Hell, there were better punk bands before them, but this early, beautifully blunt statement from the Lodi, New Jersey quartet is such a perfect package that it remains one of the most sure-fire devices to get me smiling like precious few others. Like some deranged hybrid of the Ramones, the Damned and Kiss (though the latter influence didn't really reveal itself until much later) the early Misfits were both fiercely crude and stylishly melodic (largely thanks to little Glenn Danzig's throaty, surprisingly accomplished vocals). They may have sonically come across like a concrete fist, but the band generally kept one boot planted firmly in conventional rock'n'roll (until their hardcore fixation later on).
Static Age wasn't the first album of theirs I'd latched onto. After hearing "She" and "Halloween," I picked up the compilation, Legacy of Brutality, and later the elusive (for its time) Misfits Walk Among Us (which I never rated as highly). It wasn't until 1995 (when Caroline Records re-released the seminal Static Age), however, when I heard "Bullet" in a Boston record shop that I fell in love with them all over again, immediately forgiving Glenn and the boys for the po-faced boorishness of their later work, Samhain and the humorless shenanigans of post-How the Gods Kill-era Danzig.
Static Age packs so many classics into one album that its virtually unstoppable. For "Last Caress", "Angelfuck", "Bullet", "Attitude", the Patti Hearst-baiting "She" and the joyously macabre brilliance that is "Hybrid Moments" (quite possibly one of the most perfect songs ever recorded) alone, Static Age should occupy the upper reaches of every discerning rock fan's list of crucial albums. Forget their later exploits, forget that they dressed like a pro-wrestling Munsters, forget that Glenn-less incarnation that sullies their good name today....Static Age is essential listening, and if you can't recognize that, you have no business owning any music-listening equipment.
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