How La Sexorcisto Gave The ’90s The Metal It Secretly Craved

By 1992, ‘heavy metal’ had quickly become a dirty word. The genre’s image-obsessed mainstream identity was a ghastly shadow of the ground-level hunger that had once endeared it to the world, with former street urchins donning oversized blazers and singing glittery bullshit about girls half their age. Thrash had become long-winded, the satanic fury of yesteryear giving way to mid-paced seven-minute chug-alongs, while death metal felt to many listeners like hostile, unlistenable territory that only the sickest kids wanted to explore. Being a weirdo dirtbag who wanted to smoke some weed and go see a Vincent Price flick was, it seemed, a thing of the past.

But through it all came a shining neon light: La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1, the third full-length album by White Zombie. With this record, the artsy New York noise rock band transformed into the muscular California highway metal crew that would change heavy music as the world knew it. Packing all the color and weirdness of alternative rock without the mopiness or weak guitars, La Sexorcisto reminded music fans that metal had no boundaries, and at its core would always be rad as fuck… read more >