Artist: The Misfits

Album: Static Age
Label: Caroline Records

Review:

First of all, I’d just like to say that I’m quite the Misfits fan…I’m currently in possession of the Misfits Box Set, which has given me access to quite a few of their albums and compilations. Because of this, you may naturally assume that this is just going to be another biased fanboy review. However, during the course of this review of their debut album (made in 1978 yet remained unreleased until 1997), I am going to totally flush my mind of the love I have for this band and I hope to produce an review that’s going to be of some use for somebody.

It remains a mystery to me as to why the Misfits’ debut album had been released 19 years after its creation. I assume it involves the wacky world of the music business and the difficulties met by a low-budget East Coast Punk band that lacked the funds and connections to send out the album at the time. Many fans of the Misfits are familiar with their first official release, their third album ‘Walk Among Us’, and their developed Hardcore Punk sound with tinges of Gothic Rock with horror themes and atmospheres. This album, though it may not be a classic in the Misfit’s catalogue, represents a key moment in Punk Rock where the genre overlooked anarchy and politics and started looking into more distinctive themes and ideas.

This is an album where you can definitely hear the band’s inspiration of the Damned. The Damned were much like the Misfits in the sense that they looked past the social messages of the Punk scene and delved into more eccentric ideas, including horror films amongst others. Its here that the Misfits carried on the trend in Punk that the Damned had started, taking the ‘Horror Punk’ formula and evolving it furthermore to carry it through time. It carried through the first wave of Punk Rock in the late 70’s and through to the second ‘Hardcore’ wave of the 1980s. On this album, the Misfits had employed use of eerie echoing and muddy guitar work with Glenn Danzig’s hollering yet somewhat peculiarly melodic vocal work that sought to avoid the shouting and snarling style of vocal work popularised by bands like the Sex Pistols. This is another way in which the Damned rear their head once again, with vocalist Dave Vanian’s use of melodic yet suitably punky singing.

The Misfits 1978 Line-up (Left-Right) Glenn Danzig, Jim Catania,
Frank LiCata and Jerry Caiafa

The lyrics on this album certainly display the Misfits as a band obsessed with horror movie culture that goes hand-in-hand with the one-part ghoulish, one-part aggressive guitar assault of Frank LiCata (or, as he was known in his career as a guitarist, Franche Coma) and the haunting and sometimes hostile vocals of Danzig. It’s on songs such as Last Caress, Hybrid Moments and Hollywood Babylon that these horror-inspired lyrics shine through. On the subject of ghouls, creatures of the night, serial killings and the waking nightmare that is the Hollywood underground its impossible to deny Danzig’s lyrics as some of the most unique in all of Punk Rock. However, every Punk band is never caught without it’s all-out frenzied moments of controversy, exemplified on songs such as Bullet: a song in which Danzig hollers on about a very graphic and horrific Kennedy assassination.

Yet every lyric on this album is tinged with that unique Danzig touch, turning what could be average against-the-system Punk Rock numbers into brooding, ghoulish songs made to shock and scare.


The introduction to the album begins with a 6-second long piece of television static before moving into the first track: Static Age. This is a song very typical of the early Misfits sound, before their Hardcore transformation. The guitar work is quite slow in comparison to typical Punk Rock guitars, drenched in biting, crunchy overdrive ringing out into some form of unseen expanse. Full-bodied guitar chords can also be heard ringing out occasionally over the steady rhythmic playing, bringing an added feeling of the ethereal to the guitars. The same approach seems to have been employed on numerous songs throughout the album; with the songs TV Casualty, Return Of The Fly, Come Back, Hollywood Babylon and Theme For A Jackal. I find that this approach to the guitar work goes hand-in-hand with the chilling, macabre lyrics that these songs contain.


However, for fans of frantic high-speed guitar work that Punk has been famed for, Franche Coma delivered more than enough hasty Punk Rock riffs to wreck your room to. Teenagers From Mars, Angelfuck, Attitude and Bullet can hold their own against the guitar work of, say, Steve Cook of the Sex Pistols. There are two quite unique songs on this album to: Some Kinda Hate and We Are 138. Some Kinda Hate is, in its own morbid way, possibly one of the most melodic songs on the album. The only way I can describe this song is that it sounds as if it is being played through the decrepit stereo system at a dance of the dead. The lyrics hint at romantic intentions whilst involving grisly imagery involving death and gore. The instrumentals on this song are quite boppy and you could even dance to it in some form, with melodic vocal lines in the chorus that soar (to perhaps the best of Danzig’s abilities at the time) and even includes a small, slowly riffed guitar solo to add an extra romantic, melodic edge.


We Are 138 is all about breaking the mould of social expectance, proclaiming that by following a uniform and code humans are becoming ‘androids’. The song begins with a small section that stomps, much like a marching crowd, into the main section of the song. What follows is fast Punk Rock riffing and towards the end, more stomping hits on the guitar and drums and even the inclusion of some form of synthesiser pulsing in the background with a sound not too dissimilar to a laser – perhaps a reference to the comparison between mankind and androids.


Now, I haven’t talked much about the drums and bass guitar so its time to give bassist Jerry Caiafa (later known as Jerry Only) and drummer Jim Catania (also known as Mr. Jim). Caiafa’s approach to bass involves a heavy emphasis on droning in the distance to the haunting guitars on the songs like Static Age and TV Casualty yet on faster-paced songs like Attitude, he attacks his bass like any other self-respecting Punk Rock bassist, running by the side of the guitar. It’s during the slower, more atmospheric songs that Caiafa takes advantage to expand his bass playing beyond simply droning a progression of notes repeatedly, with a few sly bass fills that employ a few extra notes to add a little extra spice to the song’s backing. Yet I’m not entirely satisfied with the bass on this album, though its not because of Caiafa’s skill or timing. It’s all in the mix of this album: the levelling. I feel as if the bass is too loud in places and contrasts too much against the biting, overdriven tone of the electric guitar. Its most noticeable on the song Teenagers From Mars, where the bass utterly flattens the guitar work with a thick and sometimes jangly tone. Despite this minor snag in the post-production of the album, I find Jerry Caiafa’s bass playing acceptable in keeping the balance between atmospheric droning and Punk Rock frenzy perfectly right…just the sound that I feel the Misfits were looking for – and achieved – on this album.


Mr. Jim plays the drums. In Punk Rock, the drummers are usually overlooked as their skills usually surpass a basic beat to attempt to keep the rest of the madballs in the band in time. But don’t let the Punk Rock stereotype fool you, as Mr. Jim is one of the few drummers in all of Punk Rock who’s had to play – on occasion – broody and atmospheric beats. In my opinion, his star song on this album is Come Back: a song that shows just how gloomily he can play. Mr. Jim combines a steady drone on the bass drum with one of the hi-hat, with a rhythmic striking of the snare drum and the occasion flourish on the ride and crash cymbals to add a misty, ominous quality to the backing of the song’s quite murky feel. As well as this, Mr. Jim thrown in the odd fill that combines the snare, toms and cymbals to add variation throughout the song so the backing track becomes a mind-numbing drone. A separate section to this song also sees Catania throwing in off-beats on the snare to add even more variation. All in all, Come Back – in terms of the drum playing – is a very versatile that leaves you guessing what kind of a fill he’s going to throw in next…it somewhat adds an element of expectation or excitement to the backing track, whereas previously listening to the drum work in a Punk bands was the equivalent of watching static on the TV: uninteresting and unmemorable. However, in songs like Bullet and Attitude, Catania goes flat out on the kit yet still you can hear him throwing in snare off-beats, cymbal flourishes and fills that incorporate the whole of his drumkit. Catania is a rare find in Punk Rock: a drummer that can play to speed, stay in time and adapt to different conditions of the song. I doubt that the sound of the Misfits on this album would be the same without Catania laying down his off-beats, flourishes and fills because then the backing would be just another paint-by-numbers noise filler.


In all, I find it upsetting that the Misfits debut album had received such a late release – especially seeing as it was released almost a decade after founder, vocalist and songwriter Glenn Danzig had left. It makes me wonder what differences it would have made to the Misfit’s career and to Punk Rock in general if it had been released after its completion way back in the era of Punk. Perhaps it could have spelled a longer stint in the Misfits musical career as a straight-up ‘atmospheric’ Punk Rock band, postponing their Hardcore heyday until years later. Perhaps bands that had been inspired by albums such as Walk Among Us might have turned in favour for this utterly unique debut and developed, in turn, a more brooding and atmospheric sound. Or perhaps this album would have made little difference at all as they took their turn towards a louder, faster, more aggressive sound and left this album coughing in the dust.


Throughout this album, I’ve used terms such as ‘atmospheric’ and ‘brooding’ over and over again that your eyes must have stopped taking notice of them. But that is what this album truly is. It has all the chilling atmosphere of a horror film with all the anger, frustration and brooding of an aggravated youth. Growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey did a lot of good for these four Punk Rockers: not only had it set them on the path to bigger and better things beyond stuffing cash into a register, but it also provided us with a band with a unique sense of style and this album proves to be their first stand, their first achievement in striving through a harsh world.


All things considered throughout this review, from the instrumentation to the vocals, the lyrics and the overall feel and craft of this album, I’ve given it a score of…


4 / 5


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Pros:
Broody and atmospheric, very unique sound, good mix of Punk Rock and ghoulish atmospheres, evocative lyrics, unique vocals


Cons:
Levelling is a little offset in some places, a few songs sound similar, some may find this album caters only to a certain taste

Remember that this review is totally from my perspective and written to the best of my ability to dissect and comment on the craft of the product in question and place any biases I may have aside.

I also do not personally own any of the images used in this article.