Wednesday 13 released five albums with Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13, but it was when he joined forces with Joey Jordison from Slipknot in the latter’s side project Murderdolls that most people became aware of him. Their 2002 debut album, ‘Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls’ redefined the horror punk genre, and when they went on hiatus in 2004 he started his solo career, releasing albums that saw him hailed as the bastard son of Alice Cooper and The Misfits. He even found time for an outlaw country project, Bourbon Crow, and a one-off glam metal act, Gunfire 76, before Murderdolls reconvened in 2010. After the ‘Women And Children Last’ album and tour, they again went on hiatus and he revived his solo career, and his latest album ‘Condolences’ is now on the player.
He has moved away from punk, and now this is much more straight forward heavy metal, although still with huge swathes of Alice Cooper influences. Part of that is down to his vocal style, as Wednesday 13 sounds as if he has been gargling whisky before laying down the tracks, providing a rough rawness that works well with the music which also owes a great deal to early W.A.S.P.. He says that he feels that there are no longer any boundaries for him, and that he can perform whatever style he now wishes to, but to be honest there isn’t a tremendous deal of variety among the songs on offer. This is a basic album, with little to lift it to anything special, with the result being that while I may not walk across the room to take it off the player as it’s okay, I may not actually have put it on in the first place. He’s good at what he does, but just not what I want to hear.
