Misfits: Static Age Vinyl LP Misfits

Long shelved early recordings from Misfits finally released! Glen Danzig’s, often mocked fascination with all things horror / sci-fi related, has gone on to influence countless bands that came after his first, and most famous project, The Misfits. Static Age was originally recorded in 1978 after Danzig was given some studio time in exchange for the rights to a record label name he owned. The sessions were recorded, mostly mixed, and when it came down to it there wasn’t a label that was interested in releasing the material. Danzig then released tracks from the sessions here and there in remixed or live forms and never released the album in full until the 1996 box set compilation, almost twenty years after the recordings took place. After The Misfits had broken up in 1983, Glenn Danzig continued to release old material and record in newly formed groups Samhain and later Danzig. The popularity of these later groups proved to help The Misfits rise to fame long after their break up essentially making them punk 101. Static Age comes from the first wave of Punk with working man’s riffage similar to The New York Dolls while still holding more street sensibilities. The album, at it turns out, for any fan is chock full of ‘hits’ in the long Danzig catalog. ‘Last Caress’, later famously covered by Metallica, ‘We Are 138’, sometimes heard as a live recording with Henry Rollins vocal accompaniment, ‘Teenagers From Mars’ later heard on Walk Among Us with plenty of other classic cuts throughout the album.

• Caroline Records

reviewed by 30 Something From Mars 9/2015