#4 HOLY WOOD (IN THE SHADOW OF THE VALLEY OF DEATH)
Dynamic Range: 6 (You maniacs; you blew it up! Damn you; damn you all to hell!)
Overall Production Grade: B-
THE LOWDOWN: Holy Wood's production shares many similarities with both Antichrist Superstar and Mechanical Animals. Like MA, there's a certain old-school vibe present throughout, though it's a warmer, dirtier sort of vintage sound in contrast to MA's cleaner, glitzy opulence. Like AS, there's a malevolence perpetually hiding around the edges; distorted ambiances and otherworldly noisescapes sometimes stepping into frame in a most unnerving way, like some nightmarish shadow figure. Holy Wood is “The Even Darker Side of the Moon”. “Let It Bleed To Death”. “The Black Album” (if Spinal Tap hadn't already taken that, and then Metallica a decade later).
...At least, it would be those things, production-wise (remember, I'm not saying ANYTHING about the actual songwriting here, just the studio stuff), but unfortunately we are now entering the 21st century, where the Loudness War has gone full nuclear. This album is a sad casualty of that, but I do consider it the best sounding of the "way too loud" era. There's a certain cleverness to some of the mixing here, as if it was known ahead of time that this album was destined to be interred in a tiny 6dB box for all eternity. Or maybe a lot of this was done at the mixing stage, with the all-too-common bus compressor doing the lion's share of the squashing. Either way, a great disservice has been done to a great-sounding recording, but let's go in for a closer listen.
THE MIX: I like to use a lot of adjectives that are traditionally reserved for visual media to describe sounds. Things can sound “bright” or “dark”, “clear” or “murky”, “shimmering” or “muddy”; and things can take on different “colors”. Color is a major component of Holy Wood, and one thing that at least lessens the damage of the overcompression; there's too little contrast in volume, but there is a certain contrast achieved by changes in colors, shades, and tones. Tonal shifts are the saving grace here, and the album is full of them. The individual parts are too loud, sure, but the juxtaposition of tonal opposites does serve to provide some impact. Take “A Place in the Dirt”, which consists of very “quiet” verses abutting very “loud” choruses. In actuality, every part of this song is very loud and lacking in delicate dynamics, but the changes in tone do create forward momentum and keep things interesting. A solitary dry vocal comprises the verse, the lows filtered out to lighten the tone; but a bright, deep vocal punches through the chorus, swimming in atmosphere. The drums are “darkened” with a lowpass filter and various effects in the verse, but allowed to bleed out in full “color” during the heavier bits. The verse guitar is clean(ish) and occupies very little tonal space, but in the chorus it becomes a formidable wall of sound. The impact would be even more cutting were volume dynamics preserved, but this is pushing the limits of what can be done to create such moments at these ridiculous levels.
The songs that fit this color-shifting dynamic fare well here; “Target Audience”, “In the Shadow of the Valley of Death”, “The Fall of Adam”; their structure, arrangement, and instrumentation help them to survive the onslaught. “Burning Flag”, “Lamb of God”, and “The Love Song”, conversely, maintain more consistent “color” throughout their running times and fall victim to The God That Eats Dynamics.
The sounds on this album themselves, though – damage aside – are beautiful. The entire disc sounds as though it's made on old, possibly decrepit gear; you can smell dust giving way to smoke on the hot amplifiers and the metallic oxidization of the mixing console's transformers. Flakes of rust fill the air on every hard snare hit. The synthesizers' cacophonies are warmer and more rounded in comparison to the sharp and cutting tones on Antichrist, further building the “vintage” motif. And the ambient sounds are given a far more important role than just “stuff that sounds cool in the background”; the allegedly real thunderstorm in “The Fall of Adam” and the sounds of firearms being cycled, cocked, and dry-fired being prime examples of using non-musical sound to enhance the mood and feel of a composition.
Bass is a little less prevalent here than on previous Manson outings. It's still the primary driver for some of the songs (“President Dead” being the most obvious example), but the reins are often given over to the guitars. “Target Audience” is almost entirely guitar-driven, along with “The Fight Song” and “The Death Song”. The tones are, for the most part, great, and the playing is very tight and precise.
Vocals are interesting here; there's a level of intimacy on some parts that hasn't been heard on a prior MM record. Manson absolutely SEETHES in the verse to “Target Audience”, pulling in close to the mic for the sharpest barbs. Aside from the choppy vibrato effect on “Valentine's Day”, the vocals tend to be pretty dry in terms of modulation effects, instead relying on reverberation for space and mic technique for texture.
It's the overall mix that really shines, though. I feel like I've said this about every album so far, but the mixer did a commendable job combining the disparate and often bizarre sounds into coherent mixes, but here he goes a step further and imbues consistent, pleasing, and thematically relevant tones to the whole affair.
STANDOUT MOMENT: The track “In the Shadow of the Valley of Death”. The drums being absent and the bass being scarce for most of the song makes for a powerful ending when all elements converge.
WEAK POINTS: There's a lot of them, unfortunately; pretty much any moment where the album needs to punch up to a higher level, but can't because it's already too loud. Take the bit in “Valentine's Day”: “Flies are waiting...”. Then when the chorus kicks in, it should burst through the wall like the Kool-Aid man and knock your ass out of your chair, but no; it's impotent. This happens in “The Love Song”, “Burning Flag”, “The Nobodies”, “Disposable Teens”, “The Death Song”, all over the damn thing.
FINAL THOUGHTS: So we have our first fantastic mix that's truly been ruined by overzealous mastering. I should reiterate that I'm only reviewing the CD here. I do own this on vinyl; it comes in at DR10, and it sounds SO. MUCH. BETTER. Night and day. Maybe some day we'll get a digital release that measures up to it.