Walk Among Us

iTunes Review

Although it was their eighth release, Walk Among Us was The Misfits’ first full-length album. Released on the Slash subsidiary Ruby, the record was right at home next to the gothic Americana of The Flesheaters’ A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die, and the Gun Club’s Fire of Love. Though the majority of these tracks were recorded during a 1981 session in New Jersey, Glenn Danzig remixed them in early 1982 in Los Angeles, adding additional guitar and vocals to some of the tracks. Transformative remixes have been a hallmark of Danzig’s career (for proof, look to the posthumous Misfits collection Legacy of Brutality, but Walk Among Us was a case when the music unequivocally benefitted from his refinishing. The album boasts definitive versions of several Misfits tracks, including “Hatebreeders,” “Skulls,” and “Braineaters.” The band’s obsession with Fifties horror and sci-fi reached its peak here, with “Vampira,” “Night of the Living Dead,” and “Astro Zombies.” Delivering cartoonish pop culture references with a devilish edge proved to be a killer combination for The Misfits, but lest their hardcore peers take them for some sort of joke, Danzig also places a neck-snapping live rendition of “Mommy Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight” here.