Photo courtesy of Amazon.com

I’ll be honest. I took this album review as a challenge, a difficult one at that. If I still went to record stores, I’d probably pass by this aisle, this genre, this artist completely. The saying goes don’t judge a book by its cover. But albums? I can judge all I want. I feel the same about artists like Rob Zombie as he probably feels about Southern sorority girls like me: crazy, brainwashed and exactly what’s wrong with America.

But I have a feeling I’m not the only one who would judge this cover. It used to feature the nearly naked behind of a woman. Don’t get me wrong, she did have on “clothing,” but she might as well have been naked so they could write it off as art instead of trash. Now, the cover is a simple black and white photo of a kitten (see right) because Rob described in an interview with Rolling Stone, “instead of censoring that cover and ruining it, I just removed the ass shot and replaced it with a pussy shot.” How considerate.

So this was my challenge. To convince all of you skeptics that there is an element of something you could enjoy in this record, which was released on Aug. 7.

The part time film director took time off The Lords of Salem to release his latest remix album, Mondo Sex Head, a selection of his heavy metal songs altered by dubstep, hip-hop and reggae DJs; electro-house and indie rock producers; and film soundtrack composers. Basically, it’s dance music for zombies. Makes me think of a certain Michael Jackson video.

The first track “Thunderkiss ’65″, crafted by J Devil,  starts the album off with full fledged heavy metal complete with indecipherable lyrics (though I’m pretty sure he’s chanting “666″) mixed with electro beats and a synth intro. The following remix of “Living Dead Girl,” removed almost any traces of the former metal sound and replaced it with mesmerizingly repetitive downtempo drum and bass beats. DJ Document One then picks up the pace and adds a dubstep twist to “Let It All Bleed Out.” Indie rock producer Ki:Theory even found a way to make “Foxy, Foxy” sound marketable and catchy. The tribal percussion that film composer Griffin Boice added to “Mars Needs Women,” makes this song perfect for an action-thriller fight scene. Maybe that’s what Rob was going for so he could use it in his next movie? We shall see.

So there you have it. After reading this, you might click over to iTunes and buy a copy straight away. And even if you don’t, at least you tried something new and maybe have a new respect for metal music. My advice, however, don’t listen to it right before you go to sleep (as I’m doing). All the talk of devils, blood and beasts is not exactly soothing.