Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good bye Mr. Holms., October 3, 2004
This is Blackie and the boys' finest hour; finest hour sans Chris Holmes that is. Anyone who's heard Still Not Black Enough can attest to the auditory anguish of a W.A.S.P. album absent of booze guzzling mogul and lead guitarist Chris Holmes. Dying for the World is nothing new. It treads no uncharted waters and falls more in the vein of The Headless Children than their much touted comeback album Helldorado. The songs are dark and the overall tone is of horror and despair. All in all there's not a stinker present, even the mellower Hallowed Ground that addresses the issues and tragedies of September 11th holds up rather well. Alleged rocker Bruce Springsteen was given awards for this opportunistic approach, as was Kentucky fried Country picker Alan Jackson. W.A.S.P. cancelled their North American tour.
By: Christopher Curry
|
|
|
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great CD! Blackie's '9/11' album, June 21, 2002
Mix 2 cups "Unholy Terror",add 2 tablespoons of "Still Not Black Enough",and a pinch of "The Headless Children",and you have "Dying for the World". Blackie writes about the pain and anguish he felt over the 9/11 tragedies (he's a native New Yorker).The songs "Stone Cold Killers' reflects Blackie's view of the sadistic killers who took so many lives that fateful day."There are 2 versions of "On Hallowed Ground",the regular and acoustic version.This song reflects Blackie's sorrow of losing the World trade Center,and iis easily one of the best WASP songs ever written.
Blackie is the most underappreciated man in music.Just put "Dying for the World" in your CD player and see why.He isn't flashy,he just writes some of the best heavy metal songs ever recorded.
|
|
|
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WASP have done it again!!!!!!!!, June 19, 2002
By A Customer
Well, after Blackie returned to the kind of socially aware lyrics and emotionally driven music he's renowned for on "Unholy Terror", he's now built on that foundation and taken the music of WASP one step further and delivered a truly outstanding piece of music and lyrics entitled "Dying For The World".
Opening up with "Shadow Man", Blackie immediately sets the pace of the album with a statement directed at all terrorists detailing how misguided and empty their cause really is, while at the same time informing them that they will pay for their sins against their brothers in the afterlife, a stark contrast to the rewards they expect to find for committing such atrocities.
Musically, this song begins with an "evil" sounding riff somewhat reminiscent of "Kill Your Pretty Face" from WASP's 1997 dark and brooding opus "KFD", and then slowly builds up momentum as each band member begins playing in an almost hypnotic fashion.
Next up is "My Wicked Heart" a sonic nod to the style and structure of certain material found on WASP's 1989's "Headless Children" which ushered in Blackie's role as a valid social commentator. lyrically, he's highlighting his own faults and negative personality traits while pleading with his higher power and asking the question if he too is beyond redemption.
"Black Bone Torso", the shortest track on "Dying For The World" is a dark, and cutting condemnation of the Catholic Church and it's army of child molesting priests. Set against a sparse musical landscape, Blackie's melodic whisper helps paints a picture of the depravity, and sexual perversion these artists of molestation so revel in. One, two, f&%k you begins the charge of "Hell For Eternity", a high energy number slightly reminiscent of the "Helldorado" album which contains a lyrical nod to the movie "Scarface" with Blackie telling the terrorists "Won't you say hello to my little friend" before they're burned like the animals they truly are. "Hallowed Ground" the fifth track on the album, and THE most moving song Blackie has ever written is a truly heartfelt, and emotional testament to the destruction, heartbreak, and utter devastation felt by all those affected by 9/11. Blackie, touchingly relates to the listener the sense of shock, and despair he feels while at the same time, speaking directly to God, conveys that although New York is "bludgeoned" it is still "unbowed".
"Revengeance", another in the series of high powered musical attack's makes special note of mankind's never ending violence against itself citing the biblical story of brothers Cane and Abel, and proves to be a perfect funereal accompaniment to those in hiding with the blood of innocents on their hands. The seventh and quite possibly most distinctively different track of WASP's career is "Trail of Tears", Blackie's epitaph to the Cherokee Nation, who forced by the United States to march halfway across the country, were robbed of their land and left to die on the road to their damnation. Musically the song begins with a lone guitar, and Blackie's anguished effect laden voice, slowly building with an electric guitar, and Frankie's tribal drum beat. As the song progresses Frankie adds tribal tom tom's while the desperation in Blackie's voice becomes more pronounced finally climaxing with his plea, "Let my people go"!
"Stone Cold Killers", a lyrical reprise of sorts to "Shadow Man" has Blackie vowing to "murder superman", a reference to the terrorists and their feelings of racial and religious superiority over those conflicting with their own beliefs, and boasting "My God will kill your god", sounds similar to material from "Crimson Idol", with it's driving beat, and big chorus. Rounding out the album's new material is the hard and fast "Rubber Man", an all out attack on the music business and "Charlie's" shady, and deceptive practices.
Finally, the closing number on "Dying For The World" is an acoustic version of "Hallowed Ground". Backed up only on the solo, and outro with an electric guitar, Blackie takes the emotion of the electric version another step higher, and emphasizes the sound of his voice and weight of his words. This version would have been a fitting closing number at "The Concert for New York" this past winter.
All in all, this album makes a perfect companion to "Unholy Terror" and is somewhat of a "sister" album in many respects. Blackie has raised the bar, and produced an album so wrought with emotion, intensity, and passion that it would be a huge injustice for this album to go unnoticed by the rock and metal mainstream, and even the world. If you're a WASP fan you MUST own this album, if you're not, pick this album up and you will be!
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
Interact With Your Music: Discover, listen to, and buy new music, all from the pages of SPIN's digital edition, free to Amazon customers.
by W.A.S.P. 
