The Bottom Line
Pros
- Like Black Aria, a cool idea for an album: the story of Lilith, the Mesopotamian night demon
- Ethereal qualities of female vocalist add a great deal of life to some of the tracks.
Cons
- Like Black Aria, the music doesn’t really go anywhere.
- Lack of connected themes makes the listener wonder how the music relates to a story.
Description
- Released on October 17, 2006 on evilive Records
- Produced, written and played (almost entirely) by Glenn Danzig
- Follow up to 1993’s Black Aria
Guide Review - Glenn Danzig - Black Aria II
Glenn Danzig has certainly had a varied career, fronting bands from horror punk groups The Misfits and Samhain to hard rock/heavy-metal act Danzig, along with sidelines as a crooner and a classical composer. With Black Aria II he returns to the classical music he explored in 1993’s Black Aria.
Once again, Danzig focuses on a story, drawing this time on the biblical story of Lilith, the demonic first wife of Adam. Once again, Danzig did all of the writing and most of the playing himself, constructing 12 instrumental tracks with a distinctly gothic feel. Unfortunately, a feel is about as far as the music gets, as Black Aria II has so little to give musically.
The problem is the writing itself: the music doesn’t go anywhere, merely repeating itself in a boring parody of minimalism. There are certainly no common themes that suggest a story, let alone a written vocal line that might cue us as to what’s going on – a particularly tragic flaw considering Danzig’s talent for lyric writing and the awesome song titles (“Overture: Winged Night Demon,” “Dance of the Succubi,” “Unclean Sephira,” etc.).
Danzig breaks the monotony only with the occasional piercing cries of a female vocalist, whose high-pitched laments add an unfortunately temporary touch of color to an otherwise forgettable suite of music. Forget the fact that Black Aria II would only be metal by association with its composer; I’d be surprised if a modern classical music fan found it worth the listen.
