How the Gods Kill found the mainstream rock world catching up to the blues-metal innovations of Danzig and producer Rick Rubin. Metallica’s 1991 blockbuster Black Album borrowed a lot from Danzig’s blueprint and became one of the biggest selling rock albums of the Nineties. In addition, younger Danzig disciples like Alice In Chains and White Zombie were beginning to garner mainstream radio plays. Danzig responded with How the Gods Kill, a less claustrophobic effort than the two albums that preceded it, but one increasingly attuned to the new trends in metal. While “Anything” and “How the Gods Kill” deliver on the public’s newfound taste for darker-than-dark ballads, other songs make explicit reference to rock’n’roll’s past. “Bodies” is based on the infamously lumbering riff from Led Zeppelin’s “How Many More Times” (itself derived from Howlin’ Wolf), while “Dirty Black Summer” recalls the doom laden intro to AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells.” Black Sabbath looms particularly large over How the Gods Kill, especially on “Godless” and “Heart of the Devil.” Even though the album contains some of Danzig’s most accessible moments as a solo artist he refuses to sacrifice his inner muse, as evidenced by the baroque nightmare “Sistinas.”