The post-Michale Graves, Jerry Only-led Misfits had always been controversial. The never-ending argument as to whether it was the “actual Misfits” was always sure to follow when someone would bring up an album like The Devil’s Rain. Being that the line up at this point consisted of Jerry Only, Dez Cadenza, and Eric "Chupacabra" Arce it was not unfair to bring up, even if it was getting repetitive. The real question that should have been asked was whether or not this line up’s material would live up to the legendary band’s name and legacy.

With such a different line up it was inevitable that the band’s sound was going to change even when compared to the Graves era. This line up clearly tried up the musical distortion intensity and went in a more melodic direction vocally. Tracks such as “Land Of The Dead” and “Ghost Of Frankenstein” were a pretty good examples of that. In “Land Of The Dead” Dez Cadena’s guitar poured down massive amounts of distortion with every strum and Eric "Chupacabra" Arce’s drums seemed liked they were being slammed incredibly hard with every hit. Jerry Only’s vocals (in these songs and pretty much throughout the entire album) were very different compared to Danzig’s and even Michale Graves’s singing. There was no doubt that Jerry Only could carry a tune. In fact, especially in “Land Of The Dead” he hit some pretty impressive notes. And with all this considered, it was’t horrible. There were times where some of the songs were catchy. That being said, these changes just didn’t sit well with what the band had accomplished decades before.

The violence and horror-theme was much more of a gimmick on this record. The nihilism and punk ethos from the band’s original three albums was basically non-extant. The Devil’s Rain came off much more as a horror-themed rock album under the name of a legendary punk band. The use of thunder and rain sound effects in between songs for example, eroded at the seriousness that the band once had. A good amount of the songs especially, “Unexplained” and “Ghost Of Frankenstein” were just very heavily distorted, mid-tempo, generic rock songs that consisted of some horror-themed lyrics. The anger and aggression were just nowhere to be found and the lyrics came off as somewhat cartoonish and a bit corny.

The Misfits that recorded The Devil’s Rain in many ways was a totally different band altogether from the one that brought us amazing songs like “Bullet,” “Hybrid Moments,” and “Skulls.” The sound, the song structures, the attitude, and the lyrics were incredibly different even though they used the same band name and had horror-themed elements through out the record. The Devil’s Rain had its moments, both positive and negative. But when fans looked back at The Misfits’ whole discography, it really didn’t compare to the what the band accomplished with the first line up and even to some of what the Graves-era line up released as well.