Whilst it may have been five years since Rob Zombies' last solo record, this CD has not been 5 years in the making. Confused? let me explain. As you may or may not be aware, music is now merely one of the erstwhile Mr Zombies creative outlets. In the five years since 2001s "Sinister Urge" he has been far from idle having directed two movies, scored/compiled several soundtracks and also has an animated feature close to completion.

And this, for me, presents a problem. It appears that as a result of these other projects that there hasn't been sufficient attention lavished on this record and a lot of the tracks seem either to be sound tracking an as yet unreleased film or at worst could be dismissed as filler as they don't hold up in their own right, in the main falling into a kind of Alice Cooper sings Nine Inch Nails kind of territory - and not in a good way!!

It takes until track four "Seventeen Year Locust" before we get an original(ish) groove and with this being followed by "The Scorpion Sleeps" easily gives us the best segment of the album - that is if you ignore the fact that "The Scorpion Sleeps" borrows heavily from Marilyn Manson's "Fight Song" and Gary Glitter's "Rock And Roll Part 2" of course. Other highlights include "Death Of It All" and "The Devils Rejects" the latter's eerie slide guitar giving the track a very atmospheric feel when coupled with the mainly spoken vocals.

But these highlights are few and far between I'm afraid, and overall I'm left with a feeling that this album has been rushed out, especially as it totals less than 40 minutes in length and is so disparate in terms of the quality of tracks on offer. An old phrase from my school reports seems so appropriate in the circumstances "capable of so much more" seems to sum up this album and I'm sorry to say that we could probably toss in "could try harder to apply himself" as well, disappointing

Let us know your views on 'Educated Horses'

Track List

Sawdust In The Blood
American Witch
Foxy, Foxy
Seventeen Year Locust
The Scorpion Sleeps
100 Ways
Let It All Bleed Out
Death Of It All
Ride
The Devil's Rejects
The Lords Of Salem

Line Up

Rob Zombie – Vocals
Scott Humphrey – Guitar/Bass/Keys
Josh Freese – Drums