Rob Zombie MONDO SEX HEAD (EX)

Photographers: Piggy D.; Rob Zombie.
An artist who is no stranger to being remixed, Rob Zombie lets more producers take a shot at reworking his songs on the career-spanning remix album Mondo Sex Head. Featuring songs from his solo career and his time in White Zombie, the album feels like a best-of as it re-imagines 20 years of hit songs. The album kicks off with Zombie's first hit, "Thunder Kiss '65," which gets a dubstep-influenced remix courtesy of fellow '90s alt-metal superhero Jonathan Davis (Korn), who reinvigorates the song with a marching beat and a screeching, chopped-up chorus. Deftones' Chino Moreno and Far's Shaun Lopez (under their Crosses moniker) drop in to give the maximalist horror rock anthem "Dragula" a more subdued, atmospheric makeover, stripping away the song's raucous exterior and replacing it with something unusually plaintive. The most impressive thing about the album is Zombie's knack for finding the right person for the job, expertly assigning the tracks to artists who can properly transform each song into something that keeps its original core intact while turning the rest of the song into an entirely new entity. This ability to get something unique out of people without compromising his own vision makes it no surprise that the singer has had such a successful career behind the camera as a director. This blend of the original songs' intentions and the careful hand of the remixers makes Mondo Sex Head an album that is sure to appeal to fans of Zombie as well as fans of the producers brave enough to rework some of these alt-classics. ~ Gregory Heaney

• Format: CD
• Genre: Pop