ROB ZOMBIE
Educated Horses
Geffen Records 2006
www.robzombie.com

Live Rob Zombie pics

What’s the 4-1-1?
Rob Zombie drops his third solo album, after a five year music hiatus.

Genre
Hard rock / metal

The Good
“American Witch” is lead by a heavy riff. “Foxy Foxy” has a trippy retro feel to it. “Let It All Bleed Out” is loaded with chugga-chugga riffs and typical echoed Zombie vocals. Zombie takes a chance with acoustic guitars and strings on the Alice Cooper-esque “Death of It All.”

The Bad
The problem with this release is that it is void of all of the power and energy that previous Zombie releases contained. A lot of critics and fans are saying that Rob sold-out or softened his sound for his record label, but I say he was just lazy. He’s capable of better. Most songs, such as “Foxy Foxy,” “17 Year Locust,” “The Scorpion Sleeps,” “Death of It All,” “Ride,” and “The Devil’s Rejects” (shameless movie plug) barely break mid-tempo. The majority guitar riffs are limp and uninteresting.

I think a major factor in this was the departure of longtime Rob Zombie guitarist Riggs (replaced by ex-Marilyn Manson John 5). With his latest project Scum of the Earth, Riggs has all of the elements that are missing from this album and that were a big part of Zombie’s past (Hmmm...). Beyond the actual music, I have to tear up the album as a whole unfortunately. Two of the eleven tracks are instrumentals and the complete runtime is under 40 minutes. That’s all he could come up with in 5 years?

The Verdict
No energy + no power from Rob Zombie = no effort. To me Educated Horses seems like a half-ass attempt by Zombie to keep his music fans at bay while he works on his new passion, movie making. Why he even bothered with this uninteresting collection is beyond me.

Did You Know?
Rob Zombie’s next feature film will be The Haunted World of El Superbeasto; an animated movie. Zombie is also Geffen Records’ longest active artist (fifteen years).

Rating: out of 5

--George Dionne