Am I the stupidest person with money in the world? Probably quite close but there’s no regrets here baby, because my (questionable) decision to buy Static Age on vinyl DESPITE owning practically every song on the album ALREADY on the remastered Legacy of Brutality turned out to be a good one, because, as I found out, the sound The Misfits carried in the 70s is something supernatural. The first album to be recorded (1978) and the last to be released (1996), Static Age is a leaden-blue electric storm, channelling both punky pace and vigour alongside this dingy, earthy rawness that bathes you like a baptism in a stagnant lake. The title track Static Age colours the album in its grey-purple hue; along with TV Casualty, Franché Coma’s steady, deep guitar stomps down, and Mr. Jim’s drumming runs along measured but intricate, with lots of rolls and ticks. Church bells gong, radio static crackles and sci-fi whirs echo – this is horror motherfucking punk!

Danzig’s vocal in Return of the Fly and Hybrid Moments glide tender and ghoulish as if sang in a church hall, and the bone toms knock about as the ride clicks perpetually. Last Caress envelopes you in the same ghostly silk, electric guitar coursing dirty and unrefined compared to the standard version. Teenagers From Mars was my first Misfits love when I first started listening to them and this Static Age rendition is almost unrecognisable from the one I’d heard… and I think I’m in love with it. Jerry Only’s bass pounds down mercilessly, and Danzig’s vocal has this kind of untouchable substance my grasp of the English language fails to justify. The best I can do is quote Dick Porter when he described Dave Vanian’s voice in Anything (1986) as “processed to near banality”, and say this is the opposite. It’s so intact and real, it feels like Danzig’s singing right next to you.

into Come Back and – what in the fuck? Five minutes long?! Mr. Jim must have some pretty decent stamina because the drums lead from start to finish, twisting and climbing alongside the bass like poison ivy. This kind of calm, tombish doom also rumbles through Spinal Remains and In The Doorway; In The Doorway was my single of the week about a month ago and I already described its sound with some kind of weird, inaccessible metaphor, so this time I’ll just throw some words (velvet, radioactivity, gravel) at you. I think Spinal Remains joins Queen Wasp in my Top 2 Misfits tracks.

Although I’ve never associated the two tracks with one another before, Hollywood Babylon and Theme For A Jackal both bounce with the same kind of skeleton, rockabilly bop, and Danzig aint nicknamed ‘Evil Elvis’ for nothing. I love the deeper, soiled recording of She, and Bullet‘s racing hit and run pace (or the opposite, I suppose, seeing as it’s about the assassination of JFK) – Danzig’s vocal carries all the crude conviction needed to pull off those lyrics.

It’s unbelievable to me that no label would release this album when it recorded in ’78, hence why it was never entirely released for another two decades. This album, especially the early versions of their later hits, sounds so good that I wish they were the first recordings I’d ever heard.