Halloween brings the return of Danzig, the Misfits

Danzig
6:66: Satan's Child
**1/2

The Misfits
Famous Monsters
**1/2

Twelve years after Glenn Danzig decided to sever all his ties to longtime partner Jerry Caiafa and embark upon a solo career, the former Misfits frontman continues to produce loud, abrasive metal with his latest bandmates, bassist Josh Lazie and drummer Joey Castillo. Their latest effort, 6:66: Satan's Child, is a passable fusion of screaming guitars and electronic beats, featuring enough generic hard rock to impress the legions of prepubescent Korn and Limp Bizkit fans who wouldn't know a classic Misfits tune if it fell on them. (To be fair, plenty of kids might remember the band for its contributions to Metallica's mediocre Garage Inc. compilation, but even the boys from Metallica are now bona fide classic rockers.) Unfortunately, Satan's Child does not live up to the impossibly high standards set by his work with the Misfits or even his strongest solo material (Danzig, Thrall: Demonsweatlive).

That's not to say that Danzig has forgotten how the gods rock on this, his seventh solo effort. The title track is an energetic rocker that exhausts listeners with its bludgeoning riffs and its pounding beats. The opening number, "Five Finger Chant," is a similarly engaging piece that launches a full-scale attack on the senses, though it suffers from poor mixing that allows Danzig's crooning to drown into a sea of distortion. Meanwhile, "Into the Mouth of Abandonement" wisely borrows the catchy bass line from "Twist of Cain" for its creepy tale of alienation and desperation.

But inspiration on Satan's Child is running thin, and too often it seems that Danzig is just going through the motions. His lyrics are riddled with tired cliches and predictable rhymes ("Some have to have/Some like to bleed/The more they take/The more you need"), a far cry from the clever humor that he once invested in songs like "Ghoul's Night Out" and "Hollywood Babylon." To make matters worse, many of the tracks on 6:66 seem cold, even clinical. They've got the thunderous guitars, the masturbatory solos and all the other head-banging bulls**t that Danzig fans have come to expect from their cartoonish hero. But Satan's Child is missing the soul and the urgency that made Danzig a star in the first place. That's a shame, because there is still talent here, and it's going to waste.

For their part, the remaining members of the Misfits (Caiafa and his brother, Doyle) regrouped in 1995 to begin recording American Psycho, their first full-length album of new material since 1986's Legacy of Brutality. For Psycho, a lackluster effort that proved beyond a reasonable doubt that rust really does sleep, they enlisted the help of singer Michale Graves and drummer Dr. Chud. Now, that quartet has returned with Famous Monsters, a collection featuring 18 new tracks overstuffed with thunderous guitar riffs and lyrical gore. And though Caiafa and his fellow fiends do their best to recreate the unrelenting sound that once made the Misfits the greatest band in the world, Monsters is little more than a disappointing reminder that this band is far removed from its prime.

To its credit, Monsters looks and feels like a classic Misfits album. It's got the overblown lyrics ("Cutting with a knife/Blood is spilling everywhere/She will be my wife/Secondary spine incisions must be accurate"), the aggressive power chords and the tight harmonies that helped to distinguish the band from countless other punk acts of the last two decades. It even has a couple of tracks ("Hunting Humans," "The Forbidden Zone") that make fine additions to the band's illustrious catalogue. But alas, the ferocious, irresistible melodies that once graced songs like "Teenagers from Mars" and "Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?" are missing from this latest effort. Gone too are the unique vocal stylings of Danzig, who is aped and mimicked - but never equaled - by Graves. Without such essential components, the album struggles to generate the vitality that was almost palpable on earlier albums like Brutality, Earth A.D. and Walk Among Us.

Clearly, the new Misfits have settled into a groove, having mastered the fine art of calculated, formulaic record production. They are no longer the pioneering punks who (regrettably) opened the doors for novelty acts like White Zombie and Marilyn Manson. Instead, they are content to coast on the wave of nostalgia, producing carbon copies of their past hits for a new generation of bloodthirsty, hormonally charged teenagers.

But perhaps the future of the Misfits is not so bleak. Caiafa and his fellow fiends do produce a handful of gems on Famous Monsters, proving that the creative juices still flow through their animated corpses. Perhaps all they need is a little inspiration, a shot in the arm to help them take their music to the next level. And should they ever get their hands on something like that, they might consider passing a little of it along to Danzig. Lord knows he could use it.