W.A.S.P.
Still Not Black Enough

There are albums made to be listened to at a certain time of day, whether in the morning or evening, others that need to be heard at a certain age to be fully understood, some in moments of frenzy and pleasure, and others in moments of solitude and intimacy.

I want to focus on this word to describe the album I am about to review. Intimacy. "Sharing the most personal and secret thoughts and feelings, interiority, spiritual sphere." It's also true that intimacy is followed by a slow process of personal interiority, an understanding of who we are. "Still Not Black Enough" in this case, perfectly encapsulates all this.

Born as the successor to that masterpiece known as "The Crimson Idol", perhaps it is this very legacy that led "Still Not Black Enough" to not be immediately understood, to be labeled as trash unworthy of a group like W.A.S.P.

In this album, Blackie Lawless decides to bare his soul, to tell it to the listener, ranging from his state of mind, his thoughts, his pains to his joys. This album can also be seen as the natural continuation of "The Crimson Idol", because if it's true that the protagonist of that record, Jonathan, completely mirrored Lawless, the latter decides to tell his own story without hiding, in these 10 tracks.

No easy-to-grasp song, no stupid sugary ballads, but only tracks that shed light on the soul and mind of the composer, the band leader, as troubled as he is brilliant. It is certainly difficult to immediately understand a record of this caliber, and even if at first we convince ourselves of this, we are wrong.

How many artists have ever bared their souls? How many have had the courage to show themselves for who they are, without using the usual media covers, also telling their flaws and inadequacies? It is certainly easy to talk about our strengths, our positive sides to the public, and there's nothing wrong with that, there's also a certain sense of self-satisfaction hidden in us. But trying to bring out our true self, without feeling shame and trying as much as possible to be direct and precise... it's not something everyone can do.