As great things often are, the original lineup of the Misfits wasn't long for this world. Not only had they replaced their guitarist during the release of Earth A.D., but after that that album's release, the band saw the departure of perhaps the most important piece; lead singer Glenn Danzig, an occurrence in the band's career that would ultimately cause their fanbase to split into two categories: those who though that the band went downhill from that point on, and those who though 'ehh, they aren't that bad'. Now who got the opportunity to fill the legendary shoes of Glenn Danzig? Well, a young upstart musician who went by the stage name Michale Graves, that's who. In fact. the loss of Danzig caused the band to go into a near 14 year hiatus, before finding graves and recording their followup to Earth A.D., titled American Psycho. This means that the band replaced Danzig with a guy who would have been around 3 years old when the band first game on to the music scene.
But, age is just a number, and for all the problems that I do in fact have with American Psycho, not all of them involve the merit of Graves as a vocalist, more that I think his talents would have been better suited for another band entirely. Because while he does pull of some decent Danzig esque vocal performances here and there, such as the title track and the cheekily titled "Walk Among Us". Both of which are definite highlights here. But it there are some tracks here where the vocals are just too innocent and immature sounding, such as "Blacklight" which is hardly a song to begin with, and "Day Of The Dead" which is just kind of laughable.
Also, the track "Dig Up Her Bones" is, in my opinion, the sweetest the band has ever sounded, and it makes me feel like I'm getting cavities just listening to it. Sure, it is not a horrible tune, but it is a bad Misfits song. Because for all the outrageous antics of a song like "Last Caress", at least that song reflects the name of the band! You feel kind of devious listening to lyrics like that, and its campy-ness works in favor of a great song. Whereas the campy aesthetic on American Psycho just goes way too far, leading to an album that sounds like a punked out 'Monster Mash' Halloween music compilation.
As far as the instrumentals here, the band seems to be in autopilot a lot of the time, simply churning out one simple chord progression and drum line after another. And it says a lot that I'm complaining about repetition, considering that I just spent two weeks listening to the entirety of the Ramones discography. But what makes it such an issue here is that the songs just aren't that great most of the time.
So, while I did find at least a couple of moments to enjoy on American Psycho (not to mention the cover art is fantastic), I just could not get over how cornball a lot of this album is, and how much a shift the tone of the band has taken on this LP. I guess they were trying to compete with the pop-punk scene of the late 90's, but even the big players in that game had moved on at this point. Go ahead and pass on this one.
4.5/10
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