By Anthony Benigno

Ready to shock-rock like it’s 1999? The late ‘90s are long gone, but Rob Zombie, one of the patron saints of horror metal, is still hard at work pumping out kitschy, thumping arena-shakers with titles like “Werewolf, Baby!” and “Mars Needs Women.”

As if to illustrate his point, he’s named his latest record Hellbilly Deluxe 2, a sequel to his 1998 solo debut. These days Zombie is less known for his music than his budding career as a cult filmmaker, but HD2 shows he’s still going strong as a rocker.

Granted, there’s nothing here as iconic as “Dragula,” but Zombie at least does the smart thing and overloads the record with as much schlock as he can; the big misstep of ‘06’s Educated Horses was trying to play it straight.

This also means that nothing on Hellbilly Deluxe 2 is particularly new. In fact a lot of it is basically retread; most of it has been done better before by Zombie or others. Still, there are pleasures to be had. The single “What?” is perfect mosh-pit fodder, and in a perfect world, the chorus “Mars needs women/angry red women” would be the new “Pants on the Ground.”

It all adds up to about what you’d expect, which turns out to be both a knock against the album as well as a mark of its success. Hellbilly Deluxe 2 is kind of like those cheesy haunted houses at carnivals: they’ve long lost their luster as something genuinely unsettling, but there are still worse rides out there. In any case, it’ll make the Ozzfest crowd go nuts just the same.