DOYLE

Wielding his customized screeching Oktober Annihilator guitars like baying lycanthropes at his command, ex-MISFITS slinger Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein comes knocking for another ghouls' night out with his new band, DOYLE, and their debut album, "Abominator".

As with his late-Eighties, post-MISFITS project KRYST THE CONQUEROR, the DOYLE band (consisting of CANCERSLUG vocalist Alex Story, bassist "Left Hand" Graham and fellow MISFITS alumni, Dr. Chud on drums) takes a heavy lean towards metal with varying modes of doom, grit rawk and thrash. More polished in execution, the DOYLE band will net an existing demographic of fans clamoring to hear Doyle chuff his downstrokes and gouge ear canals with his caterwauling guitar solos. Now that Doyle has been seen yet again onstage in the company of Glenn Danzig on a recent tour featuring both former MISFITS principals' offshoots, the attraction is even greater for nostalgic punkers and newbies sporting the Crimson Ghost upon their chests.

The album's first single, "Valley of the Shadows", bangs along with ankle-jerking drive, as does the raunchy hump groove of "Cemeterysexxx". The riffs are no less raunchy on the slow and slinky "Love Like Murder", on which Doyle punches out more wah compressions than even Zakk Wylde (as Doyle does all throughout "Abominator") before the song kicks into a punked-up mosh tempo. The hip-shaking verses of "Mark of the Beast" carry a Rob Zombie feel before dirtying things up on the grubby choruses and chunky breakdown section.

The title track is a coarse, doom-stoner blower in the vein of BLACK LABEL SOCIETY and ALABAMA THUNDERPUSSY, while on the flipside, "Learn to Bleed" propels with a vicious thrashcore attack filled with heavy riffs and dropkicking crash patterns from Dr. Chud. Subsequently, "Headhunter" is no less fierce. Even when "Bloodstains" later in the album assumes a tone-drenched death crawl for most of the ride, the track switches gears into a foot-stamping mosher. Finally, "Hope Hell is Warm" closes "Abominator" with the same spirit of slam.

Dr. Chud, having long been in close quarters as part of Doyle's one-time revamp of the MISFITS, plus GORGEOUS FRANKENSTEIN, is one of the highlights of "Abominator". The dude crushes everything in sight with precise double hammer, rattling crash rides and trampling rolls that demand attention all their own. "Left Hand" Graham tosses out rips and snorts on the four string, sounding perfectly lethal on the title cut, "Learn to Bleed", "Cemeterysexxx" and "Headhunter". Alex Story possesses shrewd dynamics between crunk-filled woofing and low-end wailing while pulling out a few nicks of Glenn Danzig at times on "Cemeterysexxx" without plagiarizing.

"Abominator" checks in and checks out as a largely fun romp with the expected dedication to horror motifs and air spaces laid to waste by Doyle's whumping riffs and puncturing fret rapes. Each screaming solo sounds like a victim in pain (particularly on "Dreamingdeadgirls", "Headhunter" and "Hope Hell is Warm") and for his fans, "Abominator" finds Doyle flailing away snugly within his disruptive demesne.