Rob Zombie - Mondo Sex Head

Here’s a record that snuck up on me. If a PR rep didn’t email me asking me if we were interested in reviewing this, a new disc from my favorite frontman would have completely slipped past me. Rob Zombie is back with the 8th disc of his solo career but unfortunately it’s not a record of new material. For the 2nd time since quitting White Zombie, Rob is delivering us a remix album. In reality this should be no surprise because throughout his entire career he’s been pushing remix records. Two with White Zombie (KMDFM remixes and Super Sexy Swingin’ Sounds) and a companion record to Hellbilly Deluxe (American Made Music To Strip By), Rob has always been a fan of hearing other people’s interpretations of his music. It would have been foolish to think he had moved on from that feeling.

To get right to the point, these records are always going to be considered an “it is what it is” type of record for me. Even dating back to the KMFDM remix record that accompanied La Sexorcisto, these records need to be taken in with a grain of salt. They are electronic remixes of one particular artist’s material. You are either going to love it or hate it. Very few, like me, seem to find the middle ground on these records. I would however suggest skipping any remix record if you are not an uberfan of the band.

So what we have here again is a collection of Zombie material that even goes back as far as White Zombie and their perspective remixes. The most notable element of this record is that hardly any of the original material is used in these remixes. In the past, a great deal of the original music was included in the new versions but for this one, with the exception of three tracks, there is nothing that would suggest this is a Rob Zombie record. If you removed his vocals, you could have just passed this off as a DJ collection album. As a matter of fact, when all is said and done, Rob’s vocals seem to be the ruining factor of a lot of the tracks. I appreciate, scratch that, I really enjoy techno music. Call it a guilty pleasure if you must. With that being said, a lot of these mixes are actually pretty good. There is a little too much dubstep elements in there than I’d prefer but they come and go fairly quickly that they don’t bother me too much. There is also a nice mix between house, trance, drum & bass, and there is even a near triphop type mix in there. The blend kept things interesting.

But going back to what I said previously, it is what it is. I don’t see anyone that isn’t a super fan of Rob Zombie giving much of a care about it. With that being said, there must be enough of them out there that keep giving Zombie the impression that it’s a good idea to put these types of records out every few years. The one real good piece of news is that this gives him a reason to tour and he’s already stated that once that’s over, the band will be back in the studio working on new material.

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