Everything surrounding my initial viewing of the sex and gore drenched, teen sci-fi fantasy "Heavy Metal" was perfectly titillating to an 11-year old boy. On one of my weekend trips to see my late-middle aged father, his beautiful, late twenty-something girlfriend took me to the huge Cinedome theater in Orange, and we watched Heavy Metal on a 70mm screen, in blisteringly ear pounding stereo. I could barely follow what was going on, but seeing people exploding and turning into zombies and having sex couple with hard rock music I'd never heard before--basically, everything about the whole experience was exciting and dirty and unsettling and amazing.

And so enters the follow-up movie, Heavy Metal 2000, attempting to affect pre- and post-pubescent young boys with the same formula as the original, updated for the new millenium. Music is still a major part of this movie, and as you might imagine, the album culls from the current "Who's Who" of new metal and industrial metal for it's material. Unlike the original movie, however, this album is strictly hard rock, with the only two exceptions being the "acoustic grunge" sound of Days of the New, and the final track on the album--the first new original music by gloom rockers Bauhaus in 17 years. Without the novelty that helped propel the original Heavy Metal movie and soundtrack to success, how will the sequel fare?

The very first line of the very first track, "F.A.K.K. 2" (a 104 second opener written by the soundtrack's producers), tells you exactly what to expect: "I need sex, I need drugs and rock and roll!" Yes, this CD is completely aimed at testosterone worshipping young males. Only MDFMK, System of a Down, and Bauhaus offer lyrics that don't deal with sex and/or violence (well, maybe Puya offers deep lyrics, but I don't speak Spanish, so I couldn't tell you.). But this is probably exactly what the target audience wants. God knows at 12, hearing Sammy Haggar scream "And they call it Heavy Metal noise" was deep enough for me.

The album starts off powerfully. After the initial minute and a half of "F.A.K.K. 2," Monster Magnet chimes in with the atmospheric, sultry, hard hitting track "Silver Future," the first single off the album. After that, MDFMK raises the bar even higher with their synth and electronics drenched rocker "Missing Time." Rather than writing an entire essay on this song alone, suffice to say that the track is a damn near flawless slice of techno/industrial rock music. The MDFMK song also benefits from co-production assistance from the Soundtrack's executive producer, Bob Ezrin (Alice Cooper, KISS, Pink Floyd, Nine Inch Nails, etc). Even the next two songs by Pantera and Zilch are surprisingly strong.

With Ezrin given the final say, it is a given that the album is going to sound incredibly professional, at the least. The most glaring example is with the Hate Department offering, "Hit Back." This song appears on their recent album "Technical Difficulties" as a trebly, harsh synth-industrial rocker with some charging guitar. Once Ezrin gets done with it, it sounds like a straight up Metal-Industrial rocker, with the synth pulses exchanged for heavy guitars, the synth bass for electric bass, and the vocals brought forward. I happen to enjoy both the original and this new production; others may very easily like one version, and be completely put off by the other.

Unfortunately, while the sound quality is spectacular throughout, the songwriting is not. Towards the middle of the CD, we are treated to a rather forgettable rap by Insane Clown Posse, that poses as an indictment of earth's hypocrisy and inequality but ends as simply an uninteresting complaint that their last CD was banned in some places. The music is as mediocre as the wordplay, if not more so. Machine Head, Full Devil Jacket, and Apartment 26 also offer tracks that are not up to the level of the first few, although not nearly as bad as the ICP offering.

Luckily, even much of the music that doesn't make the "A" grade still has some charm. Coal Chamber's contribution, "Wishing" isn't bad, but it treads where Orgy and Korn have gone before. Sinnistar manages to add a really punchy and catchy chorus to "PsychoSexy," an otherwise non-descript hard rock song. Both Queens of the Stone Age and Puya prove to be very worthy of their current attention in the heavy rock scene. System of a Down's song, "Storaged," is completely repetative, but has some interesting lyrics, a great pounding riff, and it's mercifully very short. Basically, while these are adequately driving slabs of metal, there is just nothing too original about them.

Speaking of original, two artists who are associated with British 80s rock--Billy Idol/Steve Stevens and Bauhaus--make a "comeback" of sorts, contributing original music on the soundtrack. Both of their songs are co-produced by Bob Ezrin (Ezrin even get's songwriting credits on Idol's song). Billy Idol's song stands out as one of the album's winners, mostly due to Idol's enthusiasm (in fact, he even does the voice of a main character in the film), which is enough to propel "Buried Alive" to being extremely listenable. Being a HUGE Bauhaus fan, I can't begin to tell you how much I wanted to like their contribution, "The Dog's A Vapour." I gave it the benefit of every doubt. It's got Daniel Ash's excellent speghetti-western guitar lines, Kevin Haskins' Programming and drums, David J's backup vocals and bass, and Peter Murphy's mellifluous voice...but no real song. It's a long, dirge-like, atmospheric piece that certainly creates a mood, but even though it picks up at the end with sax and drums, it never really ignites, or contains any part that is hummable. David J says in the CD Booklet that their piece underscores an apocalyptic battle in the movie; perhaps "The Dog's A Vapour" is the ultimate accompanyment for the cartoon, but as a stand-alone, song, I wish they could have written something with more melody and energy.

Overall, this is a memorable compilation of modern hard rock, with a few very pleasant surprises, and not too many unpleasant ones. Perhaps the more homogenized sound has to do with modern production values, or the fact that too much modern hard rock sounds the same. Either way, fans of new metal and heavier music should be thrilled with this, and Bauhaus completists may want to find this track somehow, just for their collections. It isn't as diverse a soundtrack as the original, but for those who want what it has to offer, the music may very well be just as powerful to a brand new generation.