Listen to the Terrible New Danzig Track “Devil on Hwy 9”

Danzig released an absolutely horrendous covers album, Skeletons, in 2015 that was panned by nearly everyone. The recording quality sounded like a turd-encrusted cassette tape played inside a freezer, the mix was atrocious, the performances were half-assed and Danzig’s vocals were just plain embarrassing.

So surely Danzig, a true legend, would put much more effort into his first full-length of originals in six years, right?

Wrong. “Devil on Hwy 9,” which leaked last week and makes its official premiere via Spotify today, sounds almost… ALMOST as bad. So there’s improvement, yes! And the first minute-plus of the song, before Danzig’s vocals kick in, might even be classified as “acceptable” — punk rock, right? — if not for the impending onslaught of Danzig’s old man, off-key, yarl. In that contest the band sounds pretty shot, too. “Embarrassing” is an understatement; I’ve seen local bar bands that sound better than this on their third set of an off-night after chugging free well whiskey as payment. It’s like no one involved in this project — not Danzig, not the band members, not the recording engineer, no one — put any effort into making this thing decent.

But hey, at least we know who started all those California wild fires.

Enjoy. Black Laden Crown comes out on May 26th.