Danzig III: How the Gods Kill

Danzig’s self-titled debut was essentially perfect, distilling all of the occult overtones and defiant attitude of their frontman’s earlier work while adding in a liberal amount of exaggerated yet entirely straight-faced hard-rock machismo. But the band’s aesthetic deepened in compelling ways on subsequent records. By the time of How the Gods Kill, Danzig was a remarkably well-rounded project: Burly standouts “Dirty Black Summer” and “Left Hand Black” writhed and raged as hard as anything on the first album, while ballads such as the forlorn title track and “Sistinas,” which plays like a gothic twist on a Roy Orbison torch song, illustrate the bandleader’s remarkable knack for conjuring sublime sonic gloom. Meanwhile, Rick Rubin’s vivid, in-your-face production offered the best-ever studio rendering of the profound chemistry shared by the original Danzig lineup of the singer, guitarist John Christ, bassist Eerie Von and drummer Chuck Biscuits.