No joke this time. It’s finally time we examine what may be 1 o’ the most memetic albums in all nu-metal, The Sickness, the album with the world-conquering “Down with the Sickness”.

I don’t think I mentioned it before, but @ 1 point in my life Disturbed was my favorite band, ’tween when e’en lamer bands like Papa Roach were & when I stopped relying on mainstream radio for music discovery. Now my favorite metal music is real art, like Ghost SiIvaGunner & DJ Cumberbund Pig Destroyer, Cattle Decapitation, Anal Cunt, & Death, which I listen to from my vinyl record player while sipping my glass o’ Sangiovese Grosso Kraken rum in my purple rope. While Ten Thousand Fists was the 1st album I listened to, The Sickness immediately became my favorite o’ theirs ’pon listening to it. As I hinted @ in my review o’ Ten Thousand Fists, that album has lost much o’ its charm for me. ¿Will the same happen for The Sickness?

E’en many Disturbed fans look down on this album as being “simple”, but they’re just fake hipsters ( if they were real hipsters they’d be listening to actually serious music, like Aborted Fetus ). As we will see, some o’ the songs on this album are, indeed, simple, but there’s also a bit o’ variety, especially compared to Ten Thousand Fists, which was hardly math metal, which I’m pretty certain is a real genre, or later albums, which mostly coalesced round the same sound, albeit 1 I moderately enjoy ( Evolution & onward would coalesce round a new sound, & that sound was “sucking like Imagine Dragon My Nuts ’Cross Your Face” ). Songs like “Fear”, “Numb”, & — for better or for worse — “Droppin’ Plates” employ styles & sounds that Disturbed would ne’er try ’gain.

1. Voices

This was always my favorite song off this album, essentially a better version o’ “Down with the Sickness”, with faster, catchier verses that are much funner to sing ’long to like “Liberate” from their following album, — albeit also as repetitive ­— a mo’ melodic chorus with mo’ interesting pitch variations, & a bridge that is o’er the top in a mo’ fun, fast-paced way than “Down with the Sickness”’s infamously cringe bridge, especially since the fact that the singer is s’posed to be insane makes it feel mo’ fitting & lack the pretensions o’ “Down with the Sickness”. Admittedly, the opening “¡SOOOAAAAH!”s aren’t as iconic as the famous “¡OH-WAH-AH-AH-AH!”s, but you can’t have e’erything.

In essence, this song has aged ’bout as well as a Disturbed song could & is still a certified spookyween banger.

Song Grade: S

Music Video

I love the concept o’ this music video: some dorky cubicle worker listening to Disturbed with cheap, shitty headphones — what I imagine to be the average Disturbed fan, tho nowadays we go a step further in being asocial by just working from home — while some bald ghost man who’s his schizophrenic illusion tells him to tie up his boss & coworker who keep fucking with him while he’s trying to work, or… tossing the papers on the floor to the woman who handed him too much work with a smug smile. Honestly, these violent fantasies are tame as fuck. E’en mo’ tame, when the man breaks, he doesn’t e’en do anything mo’ than take off his tie, mess up his hair so he looks like Jesse Pinkman, & go attend a Disturbed concert. Not the most exciting concert, either: it looks like it’s in some guy’s garage they weren’t using @ the time, so, sure, you guys can use it for you music video, I guess.

Music Video Grade: B

2. The Game

In contrast to the goofy vague “¡I’M SO CRAZY!” lyrics o’ the previous song, this song is way mo’, well, disturbing & a much less fun song to sing ’long to, since it’s impossible for me not to interpret this as an anthem from an abuser, specially when it ends with lines like, “THAT LITTLE BITCH SHE WENT AND SHE TOLD A LIE / NEVER FUCKING LIE TO ME”. Obviously I don’t think any members o’ this band wanted to portray such behavior as positive any mo’ than they think having “violence fetishes” is a good thing ( & in fact they have an anti-abuse anthem in the form o’ “Façade” off their 4th album ); but the exploitation o’ violence gainst women as a source for drama & horror — the “dead girl” effect — is a cheap effect that, like the general machoposturing — or “toxic masculinity”, as all the hip zoomzooms call it now — & edgelordism o’ nu-metal, hasn’t aged well — tho, to be fair, Deftones did e’en more o’ the same thing @ the time, with “Digital Bath” from their magnum opus, “White Pony”, exploiting the image o’ a woman being electrocuted to death in a bath tub for cheap horror, & has received li’l flack by critics. ’Course, the main character here presents this as mutual abuse, — mutual abuse that the singer apparently likes — but since the woman in question ne’er gets a word out herself, it’s a mystery to the listener whether or not the singer is being honest or making this up to justify his own violence. Thank you for reading my literary analysis o’ “The Game” from Disturbed in the House We’re Droppin’ Plates’s Pulitzer-winning classic, “The Sickness”.

In terms o’ the actual music, I have to admit the catchy chorus does make it hard not to want to sing ’long, being e’en faster & having e’en mo’ sudden changes in tone, pitch, volume, & speed to really drive home how bonkers the singer is. In contrast, the verses have a weaker, softer, mo’ morose voice to them, especially the bridge, sounding mo’ jarring in contrast & sounding mo’ like an actual killer. This is not the most mindboggling artistic decision, but is certainly mo’ interesting than, say, Five Singer Game Grumps’ nonstop “I’M SO CRAZY & ANGRY I DON’T GIVE A FUCK” growling that only e’er sounds like not just an actor, but a bad actor. David Draiman may not be anywhere close to winning an Emmy, but he’s a’least on the level o’ a theater club member, which is high standing in the world o’ nu-metal. I also like the goofy wub-wub music that plays thru most o’ this song, like this “game” is some ICP-esque game show.

Grade: B

3. Stupify

A song so garbled that hardly anyone knows what the hell Draiman is singing — including the censors for the radio versions, which oft censor the innocent “animal” during Draiman’s opening monologue, but let Draiman’s constant birdlike squawks o’ “¡FYAACK!” run unabated. That’s fine, as when you read the lyrics, they just read like random amping, leading me to believe that Draiman composed these lyrics based more on what words he could sing in an interesting rhythm rather than for their meaning: the 1st verse has him complain line after line ’bout how nobody will give him 1 teeny li’l fuck; — or, sorry, I mean, “¡FYAACK!” — the 2nd verse has him give shoutouts to people from all different walks o’ life, which seems to have nothing to do with the rest o’ the song, but, believe it or not, has mo’ to do with this song’s intended meaning than the rest; the pre-chorus & chorus have the singer seemingly arguing with his fraying mental state, accusing someone o’ “playing around with [their] narrow scope of reality” & babbling nonsense, like asking if “we could put it on credit”; & then, as the cherry on top, during the bridge Draiman chants what turns out to be the Hebrew word “תפחד”, or “tefached”, before pleading with some woman who came out o’ nowhere to not deny him & not be afraid. Apparently this song is an anti-racism song inspired by Draiman’s Orthodox Jewish parents forcing him to break up with a gentile girlfriend when he was a kid. As it turns out, it is us, the listeners, who are truly stupefied. Also, I think they spelled “stupefy” wrong.

While I find the pre-chorus & chorus insatiably catchy & fun to sing ’long to & like the weird chant in the bridge, specially since it has real cultural context & is not just vague Arabian Nights jibberish by some pretending cracker ( looks askance @ Godsmack’s “Voodoo” ), the verses are repetitive, meaningless, & thudding, & the music is pretty boring, with its basic riffs that just sound like walls o’ downtuned guitars & bass — I love downtuned guitars & bass, but not just solid walls o’ it — during the opening & choruses, &, specially, those annoying squeaky guitar riffs during the verses.

Song Grade: B

Music Video

Most o’ this music video is just the band rocking out in a super yellow grungy room with boarded up windows — the kind 2000s music videos loved. ¡But check out these dance moves from Draiman!

This is interspersed by random images o’ some poor, dirty kid in tattered pants sitting on a bed with a long stare & Draiman dressed in a straightjacket in a mental institute — which I guess the kid is in, too. Then the kid looks @ a fish, the fish tank explodes, & then he rises in a T-pose like Jesus, but then is replaced by Draiman in the same pose. What this has to do with racism, I have no idea; but I have long since given up on trying to comprehend this song.

Music Video Grade: C

4. Down with the Sickness

( Unfortunately, I could not find an uncensored version o’ this song on YouTube ).

There’s a reason this song is memed ’bout so hard — arguably memed the most o’ any nu-metal song. E’erything in this song is begging for you to remember it: the opening tribal drums; the animalistic “¡OH-WAH-AH-AH-AH!”; the goofy chorus that sounds like the singer is saying, “COME MONKEY DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS”, but is, tragically, only saying, “COME ON GET DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS”; &, ’course, the infamously hammy bridge where the singer shouts & threatens retribution gainst “mommy” after his pleads for her to stop hitting him go unanswered — a bridge so deranged that most radio stations cut it to keep listeners’ sanity. I have read from multiple sources that “mommy” is apparently a metaphor for mother nature & how, like, the world itself, like, totally abuses you, man, tho Genius’s game theory is that “mommy” is, like, society, man, & it, like, has “fascist tendencies”, & is possibly also Ness from EarthBound. Either explanation is so hilariously pretentious that they ne’er fail to bring a smile to my face.

So it will surprise my readers that my favorite part o’ this song was ne’er any o’ these elements, but the least-considered verses, where Draiman starts by singing a calm chant, only to gradually build into louder & mo’ erratic singing, as if the singer is going from sane to insane within the verses.

’Course, I can’t do a review ’bout the memetic quality o’ “Down with the Sickness” without bringing up the meme possibly just as famous, Dicksturbed”s “Down with the Gheyness”, a true LGBTQIA+ anthem for my fellow rainbow people, which I, unfortunately, can’t embed ’cause YouTube is homophobic & it’s age-restricted & for some reason I can’t tell YouTube that my blog isn’t G-rated.

Song Grade: 👇🤒

Music Video

I’m disappointed in how tepid this monumental song’s music video is: it’s just the band on stage playing while showing clips o’ them standing around or walking toward stage & their fanbase rockin’ out, yo. Literally the most cliché music video.

Also, I didn’t remember this, since it’s been years since I’ve listened to the radio edit version o’ this song where they cut out the “no mommy” part, — or years since I’ve listened to a radio @ all, really — but I just noticed how janky & abrupt the cut is.

Music Video Grade: F

5. Violence Fetish

& then you have a song literally called “Violence Fetish”. There’s not much to say ’bout this song: it plays the same trick “The Game” does with the soft morose voice during the verses as a contrast to the lurid title, tho here it’s a bit too squeaky for my liking. I do like the melody o’ the pre-chorus’s “you’re pushing & fighting yooooour waaaay…”, only to abruptly shift to growling, “¡YOOOOU’RE RIPPING IN HAAAAAALF!”. I also find the opening lines o’ the chorus, “bring the violence / it’s significant” weird in the contrast o’ such a trashy concept & the somewhat highbrow “significant”, especially the weird way Draiman o’erpronounces the word.

The music is a mix for me. I kind o’ like the bass thumps o’ the verses, but am not a fan o’ the screeching squeaks coming from the guitars during the 1st 2 choruses.

Grade: B

6. Fear

Now here’s an underrated song, & the 1st to truly use the electronic elements o’ this album to great use, opening with what was to me an iconic Halloween-type melody that seems to foreshadow the music style o’ Ghost later, only for Draiman to suddenly shout, “FEAR SOMETHING AGAIN” — which I always thought was “HE’S HAUNTING AGAIN” as a kid, but whate’er — followed by an onomatopoeia that I actually think is superior to “¡OW-WAH-AH-AH-AH!”: some distorted, faded, “¡HA! ¡HA! ¡HA!” or “¡AH! ¡AH! ¡AH!”.

The verses, backed by similar spook synths, are when Draiman starts to get into the kind o’ grade-A cheese whiteboy wannabe-gangster rap that nu-metal is famous for. Just listen to these hard-ass lines straight from the streets o’ Chicago:

punk ass, ¿are you listening? ¿can you hear me?
¿or are you deaf & dumb to my language?
¿do the real words seem to hurt you?
well, put ’em up, motherfucker

Tho I think e’en cheesier is when he actually says, “stand back, brother, take your hand back” in the bridge.

The 1 part I don’t like ’bout this song is those damn guitar squeaks during the interlude just after the 2nd chorus. Thankfully they don’t last too long.

Grade: A

7. Numb

An e’en mo’ underrated song that sounds nothing like any other song Disturbed has made: a doom dirge with stretched out guitar noise while Draiman sings in his deepest most morose voice I’ve e’er heard. The verse lyrics are all repetitive, following the pattern o’, “[verbing] in/out/down/now, I’m”, but that fits the numb theme o’ this song, & still manages to make it weird by breaking the sentences in half in each line, ending each like with the beginning o’ the next sentence as if the singer’s numbness is delaying him. It’s not quite as good a depression song as Three Days Grace’s masterpiece, “Drown”, especially since I don’t think the extremely scratchy voice Draiman uses during the choruses really fit all that well, but is a highlight on this album.

Grade: A

8. Want

Unfortunately, after that there is a falloff on this album, starting with “Want”, a song that’s repetitive in a way that doesn’t fit particularly well with this song as “Numb”, both in the verses constantly going, “your mind won’t let you…” & the verses going, “[verbering] now, [verbering] now…”.

This song is very gross, which I guess makes it effective. It’s some guy smarmily telling some woman, “your mind won’t let you see that you want me”, which sounds like a guy who won’t take no for an answer, which is made all the skeevier when talking ’bout this woman “quivering” & “harkening”. This guy sounds like he’s so obsessed with this woman’s mind that he wants to rip out her brain & put it in a jar so he can goon to it. I mean, he literally sings out, “¡SAVOOOR HER MIIIIIIIND, YEAH!” @ the end o’ the bridge. This all very well may be intentional — I must reiterate that this is a band called Disturbed, & believing that heavy metal singers truly want to murder people or be the devil is an amateur mistake. Still, this song goes so far in its goal to be repellent that it generally repels me from listening, which is either a great success or a failing, depending on what you want from art.

Also, lots & lots o’ guitar squeaks.

Grade: 🤮

Music Video

I’m shocked that this song o’ all songs has a music video. It is, like “Down with the Sickness”’s, just concert footage, but with the twist that some o’ the footage is very ol’ footage from I think when they were much younger. Or maybe it’s a fan-made video. All I know is that the singer has hair.

Music Video Grade: D

9. Conflict

& now we have a song e’en mo’ repetitive, constantly reiterating, “[something something] ENEMY” with generic thumping drums in the background. The chorus doesn’t e’en do much to differentiate it from the verses, still reiterating that same pattern, just slightly faster. The bridge tries to add some desperately-needed differentiation, sonically, a’least, with lower, soupier singing & music, but it’s still repetitive “DUH-DUH-DUH” rhythm & none o’ it is anything that wasn’t done better in earlier songs, like “Numb”.

Grade: D

10. Shout 2000

The obligatory 80s cover song. Tho I don’t consider this cover as a song itself near as good as their cover o’ “Land of Confusion”, or as good as half the songs on this album, unlike “Land of Confusion”, I do think this cover is much better than the original, since, honestly, Tears for Fear didn’t do a great job on their original version. They weren’t e’en shouting, for god’s sake. That’s not to say I don’t think this cover could’ve been done better: it’s nowhere the loudest song on this album itself, & all the weird electronic effects & verbal digressions — including a reference to Vanilla Ice, o’ all things — are distracting. None o’ it is funny ’nough to be memeworthy, but it also doesn’t particularly sound great. That said, this song’s all right. It’s inoffensive — not unlike the original Tears for Fear song, which didn’t have amazing lyrics, either. Honestly, I don’t think Disturbed could’ve made this all that great without just making a whole ’nother song, given how meh the original is. “Mad World” would’ve been mo’ fitting, but probably too cliché. Also, given Disturbed’s style o’ doing covers, it probably would’ve been a much worse cover, anyway.

Grade: C

11. Droppin’ Plates

Now here’s a memeworthy song. It is criminal that this song is ignored. ¡Just listen to it! ¡It oozes cheese @ e’ery word! I would have to just transcribe the entire song to list all its goofy lyrics. ’Course, the big 1 is the 1 I keep using to describe them, “Disturbed in the house, we’re droppin’ plates”. As that line indicates, this is Disturbed’s rap-metal song — ’cept sung from the perspective o’ someone whose only experience with rap is the Fresh Prince. Part o’ me thinks this song has to be an intentional joke; but Disturbed apparently were so proud o’ this song that they used part o’ the line “gonna fight the war & use my music as a weapon” to name their special tour.

But I also have to highlight “droppin’ plates on your ass”, which he repeats multiple times, “a little something for your ear hole, ¡GET UP!”, & the chorus, “you know I’m talkin’ ’bout / recogniiitiooooon”, sang/rapped in a weird mix o’ Draiman trying to sound like a rapper & his quiet dirge voice. I also love how this song starts with some

“Dropping plates” is a term where the plate is a vinyl record, basically meaning that Disturbed is making and releasing songs and albums. The whole song, as a matter of fact, is about how their music is the best around. Don’t start picturing David Draiman smashing plates on his kitchen floor anytime soon.

Genius

It’s too late: you can’t stop me.

Grade: S

12. Meaning of Life

& if that wasn’t goofy ’nough, this album ends with a sex song that’s as sexy as a Davey and Goliath fanfic, with Draiman shouting ’bout how he wants to “GET PSYCHO”, wants you to “give in, give in, DECIDE”, & wants “your power glowing, juicy, flowing, red hot meaning of life”, which I guess means the singer has a fetish for fucking a girl while she’s on her period, since I’m pretty sure cum isn’t red — I guess she’s his cherry pie. The last line they were so proud o’ that they repeated it in both verses. Then in the bridge Draiman goes full scatman while singing ’bout “pretentious whores”. That’s not the Scatman’s World I was promised.

The music… fuck, nobody cares ’bout the music. It’s a god damn Disturbed song ’bout being thirsty.

Grade: 😈🍆🍑🩸

Conclusion

So, ¿does this album still hold up? Sorta yes & no. Musically, no: most songs seem to just throw instruments & especially synth effects @ the wall to create loud noise rather than having much memorable. I don’t think anyone’s going to compare any riffs in this album to the likes found on classic Black Sabbath or Slayer, & those god damn guitar squeaks must’ve been chosen just ’cause they’re loud, not ’cause they sound good. Draiman begins to show his singing — & let’s be real, acting — versatility, but develops his singing better on later albums, especially Believe.

Howe’er, this is an album that sticks in your mind better than most “better” metal. It finds that perfect balance o’ luridness greater than most nu-metal, but not to the exaggerated, gory extent that bands like Cannibal Corpse do, which goes so far that it’s too easy to become numb to it, especially when the growling vocals are so o’erdone that you can’t e’en understand what they’re saying, in contrast to Draiman’s singing, which finds the balance where you can sorta hear what he’s saying most o’ the time. The softer theatrics & pop-catchy melodies, if anything, adds to the weirdness, as do the broader, mo’ down to earth lyrics, especially since they’re still weird — not in viscerality, like most metal bands, but in how ill-fitting they are, like they’re inaccurate translations from ancient texts. Essentially, what Disturbed has ’bove most other metal bands is camp: if other metal bands are the George Romero or Wes Cravens o’ metal bands, Disturbed is the Roger Corman: fascinating in how off the map it is & fueled by their shared lack o’ giving a fuck how nonsensical their work is. For better or worse, only a band like Disturbed could make songs as fascinatingly weird as “Stupify”, “Want”, “Meaning of Life”, “Droppin’ Plates”, &, yes, “Down with the Sickness”. ¿Could you imagine anyone else e’en coming up with a bizarre, false slang term like, “down with the sickness”? ¡Nobody e’er said that! ¡Nobody said “droppin’ plates”! Those were not things people said until Disturbed unleashed them on the world like the sins o’ humanity ’pon opening Pandora’s Box. I could probably survive fine without Ten Thousand Fists, & maybe e’en Believe; ¿but The Sickness? We would lose a lot a culture with that loss.

So while I don’t imagine this album getting anywhere near the top o’ Rate Your Music, where silly things like “musicianship” & “complex themes” play the highest importance, on Mezun’s scale o’ memeworthiness, The Sickness earns its legendary status.

Album review: S

Evanescence is 1 o’ those nu-metal bands that still gets a lot o’ slack & is still called cringe while bands like Linkin Park & e’en Limp Bizkit to some extent have been rehabilitated a bit, & I’m going to be that annoying progressive & say that it’s probably ’cause this band is girly, as well as having tinges o’ emo & goth, made most notorious by that infamously cheesy fanfic, which is still a meme, but now for all the mysteries surrounding its author. I find this strange, as there has been a backlash gainst the macho-posturing o’ nu-metal — especially their love o’ the homophobic F-slur, made most infamous by Fred Durst & Jonathan Davis’s attempt @ a rap battle that soils the otherwise good Follow the Leader, & which is definitely mo’ cringe than anything on this album — in contrast to, say, the mo’ sensitive Linkin Park, & a renewed appreciation for emo/goth bands — some nerds are going to rage @ me for just throwing those both into a single group, but nobody fucking cares, guys — like My Chemical Romance. After all, as the Boom-Booms love to say, younger generations are so sensitive these days, what with their functioning nerves that haven’t decayed into dead skin yet. ¿Is it time for J. J. W. Mezun, Certified Nu-Metal Expert, to rehabilitate Evanescence the way they single-handedly made Three Days Grace the biggest rock band o’ 2024?

1. Going Under

Amy Lee’s deep, filtered demon voice declaring, “now i will tell you what i’ve done for you”, is a great, iconic way to open an album ( tho I can’t help comparing it to the opening to the famous 90s “You Oughta Know”, where Alanis Morissette opens with, “i want you to know that i’m happy for you” in a similarly slow & menacing — albeit less spectral — voice ).

In fact, Amy Lee showed her versatility as a singer in this song, especially during the 2nd verse, where she switches from the opening filtered voice to an e’en mo’ ghostly, serpentine whispery voice, to mo’ melodic singing as it transitions to the chorus. Also, while most o’ the song’s music is pretty basic riffs, — albeit making a mo’ interesting contrast to Lee’s mo’ melodic singing than, say, Five Funky Dijon Lunch Ivan Moody’s standard metal gruff shouting — I like the subtle off-kilter piano notes ’hind the 2nd chorus.

The music video is just a clusterfuck, & yet still mo’ coherent than half the music videos for Three Days Grace’s self-titled. While scenes jump from Amy Lee swimming underwater like the Little Mermaid to their guitarist, Ben Moody, sweating while dealing with nosy reporters with distorted faces, it all revolves round the theme o’ the trials o’ fame… which would be mo’ believable if this weren’t the 2nd single o’ their debut album: you crackas weren’t dealing with the trials o’ fame yet. It’s like when Eminem was whining ’bout e’eryone trying to cancel him before anyone knew what his name was on The Slim Shady LP. Also, apparently Billboard listed this as 1 o’ the 15th scariest music videos in 2013. I can only presume this was written by a TV Troper who still insists that the original Luigi’s Mansion is scary.

Grade: A

2. Bring Me To Life

1 o’ the most iconic spooky, scary skeleton songs: the opening piano notes, Amy Lee’s saturnine voice singing, “¿how can you see into my eyes like open doors?”, & a few lines mo’, only for her to be accompanied by a ghostly voice in the background & the guitar riffs starting up, then a pause before the chorus… & then suddenly Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park some jebroni-ass cracka tryin’ to see Compton named Paul McCoy in some tough-guy standard Limp-Bizkit-ass nu-metal voice going, “¡Wake me up!” & “¡I can’t wake up!” like he’s Amy Lee’s hype man, her Favor Flav, while Lee tries to continue singing despite this distraction. Amy Lee was understandably not keen on her label forcing Evanescence to add a rapper to this song, — tho thankful that e’ery song didn’t need rippity rapping, like the label originally wanted, in stark contrast to Linkin Park’s label wanting the real Mike Shinoda to not rap, & for their DJ to wear a cowboy hat & lab coat, which, maybe they should’ve considered that other idea… — but I have to admit it adds to the cheesy charm o’ this song, especially when McCoy himself starts using his own spooky voice that sounds like he’s almost vomiting, with, “¡there’s nothing inside!”, just before the end.

But, no offense to Paul McCoy ( despite repeatedly dunking on him in the previous paragraph — I’m just playin’, Paul, you know I love you ), but the best version o’ this song is a live version with the 1, the only, “I love it when you call me big Papa” Jacoby Shaddix, where the band pauses just before the famous rap verse in the bridge with some amping music while Amy Lee hypes the fuck up his intro, telling the audience to clap their hands & calling out, “¡Jacoby, get out here, help me out with this!”, all for Jacoby to sing some short, goofy rap bars. It’s spectacular & the 1 time I wish I’d seen something live.

Grade: S

3. Everybody’s Fool

I can’t write ’bout this song without writing ’bout the amazing version o’ this song I found in some files I was rescuing from my sister’s corrupted hard drive, a version I thought was some troll YouTube poop version some wag making fun o’ Evanescence made: it started with cheesy sitcom music with some kid shouting, “¡Pepperoni!”, & then some cheesy Italian voice saying, “Mmm, ¡I love it!”, ending with some bizarre message, “There is nothing better than a good lie”, before the song actually starts. & just when you think it’s going to be the normal song, in the middle o’ it you hear random jackhammering noises.

So it’s to my shock when I finally saw the music video for this song & discovered, no, that wasn’t some troll: that’s the music video version o’ this song:

Also, the “jackhammering” was apparently the engine o’ a motorcycle fake Amy Lee was riding while Jonathan Davis from Korn in his Grandmaster Flash tracksuit gives an approving nod, just before she passed 1 o’ them a blue can o’ “LIES” cola, which should go well with the “Lies Pizza” sold @ the beginning o’ the music video. These scenes are interspersed with scenes o’ puff-faced emo Amy Lee dressed in a hoodie or track pants ( ¿why is it cool when the biker dude wears track pants, but the woman’s the loser for doing so? ) in dim lit rooms or elevators, trying to force herself to smile in the mirror; dealing with nosy Karens too naïve to know that you should ne’er fuck with a gloomy-looking cracka, ’cause they may be packin’ & ready to start a school shootin’ early; &, my own personal favorite pastime, laying in bed feeling sorry for herself. This juxtaposition o’ cheesy, dumb, faux-50s style fake adverts & 2000s-era emo depression makes this music video an S rank for me.

As for the song itself… it’s fairly catchy, tho I didn’t find the music memorable.

So far this song’s lyrics are mo’ focused than the mo’ abstract previous songs. Admittedly, I’ve always been cynical for as long as I remember & have ne’er been into celebrities, so I personally have trouble relating to the feeling o’ disillusionment with celebrities. We can’t say it’s not still relevant, tho: I know I keep referencing the Great Beef War o’ 2024, — & that’s mostly on purpose as a running joke — but the bridge where Amy Lee sings menacingly, “without the mask / ¿where will you hide? / can’t find yourself / lost in your lie…”, can’t not remind me o’ the final verse o’ “meet the grahams”: “take the mask off / i wanna see what’s under them achievements / ¿why believe you? you never gave us nothin’ to believe in”. I mean, obviously it’s not as dark as that song: this song is Luigi’s Mansion to that song’s Resident Evil. But I like Luigi’s Mansion, so that’s no problem. In any case, I’m standing on the take that this song is harder than anything Five Filing Debt Crunch has e’er written. If anything, our better understanding o’ the dark side o’ celebrity now — the way Britney Spears would later be treated, all o’ the sexual assault happening then that would only come to light later, & much mo’ — make this song’s message o’ celebrity deceit much darker in hindsight & make the warnings o’ not desiring to be a celebrity much mo’ resonant.

Indeed, during the research I did during the writing o’ this review, I discovered allegations by Amy Lee that guitarist Ben Moody was abusive toward her & that her manager, Dennis Rider, had sexually harassed Lee, as well as sexually assaulted other women a few years after this album came out, as well as Amy Lee claiming that she had been in an abusive relationship for 3 years ( presumably Moody ) while writing this album. I haven’t found anywhere where Lee specifically mentions this song & the fame they clearly imagined themselves to have after this album ( if the music video from “Going Under” is any indication ) being related to that, but, ’gain, it makes this song eerily resonant with the kind o’ revelatory songs that are coming out in 2024.

( I should note that the fact that this album’s composition was inspired by real trauma doesn’t surprise me as much as it might some, especially since I already knew ’bout the story o’ the younger sister dying, which we’ll get to later; in fact, a lot mo’ melodramatic nu-metal bands accused o’ being middle-class whiny white boy emos than people realize did: for instance, Chester Bennington o’ Linking Park & Jonathan Davis o’ Korn were both sexually abused as children, the latter o’ which became the basis for the Korn song “Daddy” [ & Bennington was poor before Linkin Park got big ] ).

Grade: B

4. My Immortal

O, the infamous song. I wonder if nowadays this song is mo’ well-known as the title o’ that infamously bad Harry Potter fanfic o’er, well, the song itself. ¿Has anyone e’er brought up the fanfic to Amy Lee? After a short online search, I found that the answer is apparently yes: her own sister. That’s pretty funny.

That being said… Yeah, I ne’er felt this song, & the same goes for now. That’s not surprising, since I rarely go for slow, sparse ballads, & this 1 doesn’t have the kind o’ creative lyrics that make up for that. I mean the pre-chorus literally has the line, “these wounds won’t seem to heal”, which I would assume was ripped off from Linkin Park’s “Crawling” if not for the fact that Hybrid Theory came out round the time this song was 1st released, so they must’ve been written independently. Considering how trite the phrase is, that’s not too strange a coincidence to believe.

I would feel bad ’bout dunking on this song, considering, unlike that cheesy song Five-Footed Daily Grunge had on their 1st album, a real relative o’ Amy Lee’s actually did die while she was young; but it turns out Amy Lee hates this song, too, — or this version, anyway — ’cause it’s a shoddy recording with fake piano & poorly-recorded vocals from an ol’ demo, tho this album’s version adds strings… which kind o’ just makes this song sound e’en cheesier. Why their label insisted on using a bad recording rather than let the band rerecord it, I have no idea. Also, apparently the song was written by Ben Moody & is “purely fictional” & ’twas when they were 15. So, no, I don’t feel bad for thinking a song by literal 15-year-ol’s sucks. In their defense, the songs I was writing when I was 15 were much worse & will, thankfully, ne’er see the light o’ day.

The music video includes a slightly better version, with real piano, better vocals, & guitar in the last 3rd or so. The guitar really does add a much-needed break to the monotonous piano melody that doesn’t seem to change much e’en in the choruses, but doesn’t make the song that much better, really. Hell, e’en the music video itself is boring, just showing black & white footage o’ Amy Lee sitting in a tree or lying on a roof or Ben Moody wandering random streets.

Grade: F

5. Haunted

Under no circumstance will any o’ the lyrics I wrote when I was 15 be released unto the world.

Anyway, this is more like the kind o’ spooky skeleton music I like, with the opening organ — ¿is that what that instrument is? — with building muffled drums while Lee drones her lyrics, only to pause with heartbeatlike beeps before going into the chorus.

The lyrics are, ’course, very cheesy, generic spooky stuff, which is fine —

The song’s lyrics are based off of a short story guitarist Ben Moody had written about an 8-year-old girl who gets trapped in a house after her ball bounces inside and is kept alive through another occupant of the house.

10 years later, she has grown dependent on the man who occupies the house for survival and while she wants to kill the man and escape, she has conflicting thoughts about the situation. On the one hand, she has the chance to finally leave the house if he dies and on the other, the man has been the only person she’s known for a decade and is the only constant in an ever-changing house.

Genius

( Genius doesn’t cite a source, but I was able to track down sources in the form o’ people claiming to be Amy & Ben — using the spy names “Snow White” & “efanar”, respectively, ’cause ’course those are the names those dorks would use — on an Evanescence fan forum. I have no idea why I’m putting this much effort into research like I’m deconstructing a political economics article, but I am apparently that afraid o’ being caught passing on fake news ’bout a 2000s rock band most people forgot ’bout. Guess I’m the dork ).

How the hell does a weird-ass story like that turn into vague lyrics ’bout feeling “so hollow inside” & how the singer “can feel you pull me down”. If I had to guess before this tidbit, I would’ve guessed this was ’bout the feeling o’ depression.

I also have to say it’s kinda weird that Moody wrote a short story ’bout a li’l girl kidnapped & groomed by some “figure” for 10 years, who is described as “rap[ing] her mind and watch[ing] her when she sleeps”, & then essentially develops Stockholm Syndrome ( insert cliché Twilight joke ), & that it’s written mo’ as a titillating spooky story, going into detail how “pale and dirty” her skin has become & how “Sun has not graced her flesh in over a decade” than any kind o’ genuine outrage against such things happening, especially given the aforementioned allegations gainst him. Personally, when I was that age I was making silly Pokémon comics ’bout an evil genius Torchic who tries to enslave all humans, not this fucked-up shit.

Grade: B

6. Tourniquet

OK, now this song’s lyrics are pretty metal, which is funny, as it’s actually a cover o’ a song by a Christian death metal band, — you know, the genre mainly inspired by such Christlike bands as Slayer — Soul Embraced, written by that band’s guitarist, Rocky Gray, who was a drummer for some o’ Evanescence’s live shows. This version is much better than Soul Embraced’s, as Soul Embraced’s singer does the Cookie Monster singing that for some reason so many death metal bands do, still under the delusion that it doesn’t make them sound e’en goofier than a nu-metal or ordinary Christian rock band. While some o’ the weird filters put o’er her voice dampens this a bit, Amy Lee still sounds mo’ like someone actually praying to God than, well, the Cookie Monster. Also, the opening riffs sound like the opening riffs to Nickelback’s “Because of You”. I don’t think that’s their fault, as “Because of You” came afterward, but it’s not my fault that that riff will always be associated in my head with that song.

This song makes a metaphor ’bout being damned to hell & separated by God by comparing that to a tourniquet being used to staunch the flow o’ blood before finally amputating the limb. Hell yeah. In this case I think it’s better that the lyrics themselves don’t go beyond mentioning tourniquets: knowing what they are & how they’re used gives the full story. What is important is @ the end where it’s revealed why the singer fears they may be damned to hell:

tourniquet, my suicide

Let me just say that, in contrast to the ✝-rock Thousand Foot Krutch’s tone-deaf song on ( maybe ) suicide ’bout how sorry the dead singer is for the trouble they caused for the “victims” still living & how they should just be an example for how the still-living should act ( by not dying ), this ✝-rock song showing genuine empathy with suicidal people with a Job-like protest before God is refreshing. I find religious songs where one writes honestly ’bout one’s struggles with their religion & the unquestionable injustice o’ the world much mo’ interesting than straight moralizing.

I’m mixed on the music itself. I like the opening noise, but some o’ the electric sounds don’t fit well, especially those fake-sounding drums, which sound like they belong mo’ in a Drake song than a 2000s rock cover o’ a death metal song. It’s a nitpick, tho.

Grade: A

7. Imaginary

I’m serious, I’m not fucking showing any o’ you assholes my shitty ol’ teenage song lyrics. They make Thousand Foot Krutch’s “Rawkfist” sound like “Big Poppa” in comparison.

I know this song is pretty silly, but I would argue it has some o’ the most creative lyrics, with vague abstract terms we’ve heard in so many o’ these albums ’bout pain & feeling hollow replaced by deep imagery o’ raindrops telling a story as they fall or “alarm-clock-screaming monsters”. I also like how that 1st bit o’ fantasy hints @ to the cause o’ this seemingly childish fantasizing, hinted @ in the 2nd verse, but mo’ fully revealed in the bridge: the singer’s insomnia induced by lonely fear o’ the real world. Maybe this is me reading my own experience too much into it, but I can tell you, in the past when I had a miserable job spending 13 hours a day filling liquor trays for airlines my alarm clock was genuinely the scariest noise for me; & the dread o’ such ticking time bomb going off eventually oft soured what was otherwise 1 o’ the few respites from said miserable job & wishing for sleep being 1 o’ the few escapes from said dread — especially since part o’ that dread was not getting ’nough sleep & being miserably exhausted the next day.

The twinkly piano notes & strings are a bit cheesy… but if one didn’t want cheesy, an Evanescent album probably isn’t the best choice o’ listening material.

Grade: A

8. Taking Over Me

Sigh.

Here is the chorus to some emo-ass song I wrote in October 2006, when I had just turned 15 — or a’least typed-up: I’m just going by the file modification date — called “Pain Game”, in all-caps, as if I was making fun o’ how dumb it sounds e’en back then:

TICKING, CLICKING
IT’S GOING DOWN THE DRAIN
YOU WILL NEVER BE THE SAME
KICKING, DEPICTING
IT’S HURTING YOUR BRAIN
YOU WISH YOU WERE OUT OF THIS GAME

I’m dead serious when I say I’m not letting the rap verses e’er ’scape to the public, as doing so would be chemical warfare on the general public, & thus a war crime. Clearly back then I had not honed the craft that I would later possess to create such classics as “I met Dr. Jekyll” & “I’m spillin’ ya beans”.

Anyway, back to the album review in progress. “Taking Over Me” is a fun song, I guess. Let’s see what Genius says it’s ’bout:

Evanescence would never again scale the heights their debut record Fallen propelled them to. When you hear a track like “Taking Over Me,” an album cut, it’s clear how they sold 15 million copies of this record. Amy Lee’s incredible vocals are matched by a heavily produced and flawless guitar riff carrying the message of a person losing their sense of self in an unrequited relationship. It’s a track that easily could have been a single.

The song was secretly written about Amy Lee’s future husband, Josh Hartzler.

( Laughs ). OK, I didn’t expect a review from their biggest fan. I think “flawless guitar riff” is a bit much, — ¿how is Ben Moody ne’er mentioned ’mong the guitar legends like Jimi Hendrix, Tom Morello, or Carlos Santana? — especially immediately after the phrase, “heavily produced”. Usually people are being disparaging when they say that.

Anyway, this song is basically a silly love song from the perspective o’ a stalker, which certainly fits well in an album like this. That’s not me making fun o’ it: Amy Lee says so herself:

As with Bring Me To Life, I was writing that one about Josh kinda too, secretly. A lot of my lyrics have double meanings. There is the main meaning and then there’s the secret, sub-meaning for me. The main meaning was storytelling from the eyes of the stalker – with the line, ‘You don’t remember me, but I remember you.’ It was sort of the prequel to Snow White Queen. But the underneath meaning was that I was having all these feelings for this guy that I couldn’t tell him about. Why tell one story when you can two? I do that so often!

It’s really precious that Amy’s treating the common literary device known as subtext like it’s some new invention o’ hers. Also, ¿are those really 2 different meanings? I mean, if you’re writing songs ’bout someone you’re romancing after but with whom you don’t actually have a relationship, I mean, we kind o’ call that stalking, too…

Grade: B

9. Hello

OK, here’s the song ’bout Lee’s dead sister. Thankfully, it’s much better than “My Immortal”, which makes me wonder why they picked that awful song to be the single ( not to say that either o’ these absolute bangers make the best radio hit material ). The lyrics are much better than you’d expect from a nu-metal song, where o’ersang wangst ’bout ¿HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO MEEEE?, e’en if sometimes based on real trauma, is the norm. Going with the mo’ unsettling vibe o’ someone refusing to accept the death o’ a loved one — as well as the dissonant tone o’ giving this song the friendly title, “Hello” — is a much better choice &, ironically, makes it feel mo’ real, as, unfortunately, all the “¿HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO MEEEE?” songs make it impossible to discern genuine tragedy from “My mom wouldn’t buy me those $40 name-brand jeans @ Hot Topic — ¡life is so unfair!”, like a musical form o’ the boy who cried wolf.

While the lyrics & piano notes are suitably creepy, the strings are a bit cliché, & it feels like it’s missing something to really make it stand out — tho I do like the falling, stretching notes ’tween verses.

Grade: B

10. My Last Breath

I like the imagery o’ a song from the point o’ view o’ someone on their last breath before death, tho I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else made a song with a similar premise.

There’s just 1 problem I have with this song:

“My Last Breath” is the tenth track off of Evanescence’s debut album, Fallen. The song was inspired by the 9/11 attacks that killed just under 3,000 people in New York City, New York and Washington, D.C., United States.

Genius

¿Who would’ve thought that making a song ’bout 9/11 would be the cringiest thing Evanescence did on their 1st album? Not to be 1 o’ those edgelords who think those random strangers totally deserved it, or whate’er, or that the reactionary religious fanatic who had no problem being on the same side as the US when they were ganging up on communists is some underrated genius revolutionary with his brilliant plan to attack a bunch o’ random civilians & do no damage to the US state itself, — that’s why Bin Laden is dead, Al-Qaeda is irrelevant, & the US… well, if the US falls, it’ll be self-inflicted & due to economic factors that would’ve happened without Bin Laden’s spectacle — but honkeys be acting like this was the 1st time thousands o’ people had died, & hardly any songs dealt with the political ramifications o’ the attack, which is weird, since it clearly was a political attack.

It’s funny that another quote, which seems to confirm that Genius isn’t making this up, has Ben Moody say, “‘My Last Breath’ came from right after the September 11th thing”, calling it “the September 11th thing”, as if he didn’t e’en care ’bout it.

That being said, I do like the line “look for me in the white forest”, which sounds majestic, till you realize it’s referring to a graveyard o’ white tombstones. There are far worse 9/11 songs & this 1 is broad ’nough to extend beyond that specific topic.

I do wish the song’s sound fit mo’ with the breathing motif, like Three Days Grace’s “Drown”, with its ending sounding like the song itself is drowning @ the end.

Grade: B

11. Whisper

¿Why does this album end with this rather forgettable song & not the song called “My Last Breath”?

E’en Amy Lee isn’t that proud o’ this song:

“Whisper” is something that we still play on stage a lot and I love playing it, it’s a great live song. But lyrically it doesn’t hold a ton of meaning for me anymore ‘cause I’m not really at a very dark place in my life at all right now.

I guess the Latin chanting @ the end is a decent album closer, tho kind o’ cliché.

Grade: C

Conclusion

Album Grade: B

Well, that was October’s nostalgic novelty nu-metal album. Join me next month as we look @ another album.

I have been very self-deprecating ’bout the embarrassing music I liked as a kid like Papa Roach, Skillet, & Breaking Benjamin, — tho I actually still liked the Breaking Benjamin album we listened to — but here is where I choose my battle & die on my sword: Three Days Grace — a’least the albums when they still had Adam Gontier as their lead singer — still holds up. I’m not going to sit here being all “hurr hurr, this shit was, like, so lame” pretending like this shit doesn’t still slap my ass back to the past to play some video games that suck ass. I’m not going to pretend I don’t cum all o’er myself when I hear Gontier’s grunge-light voice — that perfect balance o’ not too clean, with a li’l gravel, but not too far into the hurdy-gurdy Scott Stapp “singing while choking on a squirrel” style.

I’m also going to make the hot take that their 1st self-titled album was their best, a’least musically — it’s admittedly probably their worst lyrically. No album succeeds @ sounding as gloomy as this while still having ’nough pop sensibilities to actually be an enjoyable, catchy listen; no other album so perfectly evokes that feeling o’ a preteen sitting a dim-lit room on a rainy afternoon thinking dour thoughts for no reason ’cause their mother doesn’t believe in antidepressants or therapy. & since it’s September & autumn is starting to bring its gloomy weather here in the “Great Gray North” that is Seattle, now is the perfect time ( for me a’least: I don’t know what to tell you people near the equator where it’s probably still 30° Celsius ).

1. Burn

& we start with what I consider the best song o’ the album — & this band’s best song entirely. ¡It’s all downhill from here! This album opens with gradual crackling noise till we finally get those down-tuned guitars going in a jumping pattern, followed by thumping high hats like lightning strikes, & then some weird guitar riffs that go “WEAH-WEAH-WEAH-WEAH, WEAH-WEAH-WEAH-WEAH” while Gontier coolly sings the opening lines in his perishing alt-rock voice before bellowing out the chorus. I particularly like how the bridge solos go back to the main strumming, pause for a moment, & then start wilding out the riffs & drums & the different pitches Gontier sings the final word o’ the chorus the other 2 times he sings it.

¿But what o’ this song’s lyrics? ¿What is this song about? Beats me: as a kid I ne’er cared that much ’bout lyrics & would oft make up meanings for songs, e’en when I did know them. I’m pretty sure Arctic Monkeys’ “Crying Lightning” is ’bout a breakup or a toxic relationship, but as far as I’m concerned it’s ’bout lightning.

Let’s see what Genius has to say:

“Burn” is the riotous opening track to Three Days Grace’s eponymous album. Accompanied by clashing cymbals and thrumming bass, Adam Gontier incinerates his enemies.

¡Ha, ha, ha! That’s so cute: “Adam Gontier incinerates his enemies”. See, e’en Genius knows this song is great.

Grade: S

2. Just Like You

Unlike the previous song, I know precisely what this song is ’bout: it’s 1 o’ those cheesy “¡I’M NOT GONNA BE PART O’ YOUR SYSTEM!” songs.

But despite how cliché the lyrics are… the musical elements are just so good: that intro with those memorably downtuned riffs, the way Gontier shouts the verse lyrics, & then quietly sings the prechorus, only to build back to shouting for the chorus. The singing just has so many hooks & li’l twists that make it catchy. There’s a reason they made this a single.

The music video fits the song’s meaning, — spoiler: it’s the only 1 that does — & is the typical spooky sterile-white-clean authoritarian dystopian environment with e’eryone wearing masks; but I can’t not mention my amusement @ the fact that most o’ said masks look a bit like Trump, adding a whole new unintended interpretation decades later.

Grade: A

3. I Hate Everything About You

( Sigh ). Look, I know how cringe these lyrics are, — tho I don’t know if there were many songs with this love/hate topic when this came out, tho there were definitely many that came afterward — but musically this song is just perfect, e’ery part: the twanging opening acoustic notes, followed by drums, & then the best part, the quaking basslines while Gontier sings in that quivering voice that lingers on the final syllable, that feedback-filled guitar @ the end o’ the verses, the pause after the verse followed by rolling drums & shouted chorus, & then that chorus followed by the opening notes again but with those high “DUH, DUH, DUH, DUH-DUH-DUH” notes, the bridge, which sounds like a blend o’ the verse & chorus singing style, still quivering, but much louder…

I’m not e’en going to pretend to understand what story the music video’s trying to convey: from the looks o’ it, a bunch o’ zombie-faced teens come together to some neon-lit green valley to watch some dude get cucked while reliving the experience o’ being beaten & yelled @ by the same drunken ol’ man with a mean dog & then smashing picture frames on the ground. ¿Is it the ol’ man they both love & hate? ¿Why? ¿Is he the father to all o’ them? I’m not surprised such an abusive asshole would have such trouble keeping his shriveled dick in his pants to now spawn so many children.

I don’t think a song as simple but relatable as this needed to be given this kind o’ bizarre, abstract high concept; scenes o’ a couple yelling & fighting interspersed with footage o’ the band playing probably would’ve sufficed.

Grade: S

4. Home

This song has some strong elements, like the the guitar notes ending with that lingering echoing strum & the interesting way Gontier chances his voice’s emphasis on the verses. Howe’er, coming after the previous song, which was already ’bout a troubled relationship, this 1 feels a bit redundant & weaker. & while you could argue that all these songs are melodramatic, this 1 sounds especially so, with Gontier yelling ’bout his girlfriend turning off the TV & screaming @ him for no reason like it’s a soap opera. A’least the previous song offered a dilemma with the singer’s love/hate relationship; here the singer presents no positives to his girlfriend or living situation & gives no explanation why he doesn’t just leave. He e’en says, “I’m better off alone”. ¿So why not be alone?

Weirdly, Genius claims this song is ’bout “the heartbreaking effects of substance abuse on a relationship”, but I don’t see that: the only substance “abuse” mentioned is the singer getting stoned @ the beginning o’ verse 2, but that’s to deal with his already deteriorating relationship. Forgive me for not taking serious a dramatic song ’bout a relationship falling apart ’cause the singer kept smoking too much weed & ignoring his girlfriend to laugh @ ol’ The Three Stooges reruns. It would be an interesting twist if the singer, who seems to be presented as the sympathetic party here, is the 1 ruining the relationship: that the girlfriend is turning off the TV & yelling @ him to get up & live his life & that his griping ’bout how he’d be better off alone is his selfish hedonism — but that’s quite a leap to make.

The music video, which seems to tell 2 separate stories, 1 o’ which involves a pale-skinned “English-tittie vampire” smashing shit, including a room full o’ clocks & what looks like an owl cage ( ¡Kendrick promised no OVHOES would be harmed! ¡You lied! ), & a different story where the lead singer yells into a red payphone that is for some reason inside the ramshackle apartment in which they’re performing, adds no extra information regarding this song’s meaning.

Grade: B

5. Scared

This song’s an underrated spooky song with its memorable scare riffs with plenty o’ clashing high hats, Gontier singing the verses in a paranoid voice only to rise into a yell in the prechorus, & the muttering quietly in the bridge.

So this song, with its vague lyrics ’bout being “scared & lonely” & how he “wish you never told” him must be ’bout some deep, pathological fear, an existential dread that —

When the band arrived at one of the recording studios for the album, they were told that the place was haunted by the ghost of a little girl. The band initially dismissed the claims, but after strange occurrences during their time at the studio, the band felt more and more unnerved.

– Genius annotation

Or it’s ’bout a superstitious fear o’ the ghost o’ a child. ¿What were these “strange occurrences”, anyway? ¿A stuffed animal floating around with nobody holding it?

Anyway, the song still slaps.

Grade: A

6. Let You Down

This song’s all right. I like the rolling drum & bassline opening & the way it shifts thruout the verses. I also like the way Gontier sings in that quiet quivering voice for the 1st verse, but sings in a louder, almost hysterical way for the 2nd verse.

& lyrically, this might be 1 o’ the best songs on this album, with an actually clever pun on “letting one down” — offering to safely let someone down from somewhere dangerous playing off the opposite idea, being unable to support someone by letting them down, which bumped this song’s grade up a rank. The sarcastic way the singer sings it makes it ambiguous whether or not it’s applying this criticism to someone they trust or society in general or if it’s a self-deprecating criticism o’ their own tendency to let others down.

Grade: A

7. Now or Never

This is where the album starts to dip a bit. This isn’t a bad song: the downtuned guitars & Gontier’s singing — especially on the chorus — still sound good. But this is 1 o’ the less memorable songs, is a bit slow & hokey-sounding, & has the cringiest lyrics, with vacuous philosophizing ’bout “what does it all mean” & “¿why isn’t this word turning around?”. I dunno: ¿why should it turn around? ¿Did Lois Lane get crushed to death & does she need Superman to spin the world back in time to reverse it?

Grade: C

8. Born Like This

This song is e’en less memorable than the previous; tho it’s a bit harder & faster, there are no catchy hooks or any notable singing. & the lyrics are just baffling nonsense, especially the prechorus, proclaiming that “someone’s gun is laughing”. ¿OK? ¿Is this song ’bout school shootings? ¿Is this why the singer says in the bridge, “somewhere you’re floating high / you’re not living, we are”? ¿Is he talking ’bout someone who got shot to death? ¿& how does this relate to the following chorus lyrics?

it’s not what i gave to you
it’s not what i stole
we are born like this

¿Is he saying it’s not the laughing gun that’s the problem, it’s human nature?

Unfortunately, Genius has no annotation for this song, so I’ll probably ne’er know the answer to this mysterious laughing gun.

Grade: C

9. Drown

Good news: we’re back to the top-tier songs. This is 1 o’ the best songs about depression, not due to its lyrics, which are generic drivel ’bout not wanting to be controlled, — tho, to be fair, I would argue that this song’s vague incoherence, babbling ’bout how “it’s hard to fly when you can’t e’en run”, matches how many don’t really have a reason for being depressed or suicidal — but due to the absolutely dour, rainy sound o’ this song, with its sluggish bass notes mixed with soft piercing sirens in the background. The song itself sounds like it’s drowning, especially @ the end where the singer’s quickening whispering mutterings & the music become increasingly muffled.

Grade: S

10. Wake Up

A great drunken apology acoustic emo song — tho not as good as the GOAT o’ such, Blue October’s “Hate Me”. While the music supports the song, the song’s really sold by Gontier’s wavering & off-key singing, which sounds drunk & pathetic.

My 1 quibble with this song is these lines that only stood out to me now, as a much older, mature, & socially-aware adult:

i must be running out of luck
’cause you’re just not drunk enough to fuck

Um, ¿is this singer saying that he can only get sex from the recipient o’ this song ( or can only enjoy it ) when she’s too drunk to give reasoned consent? ¿Is this why she won’t “wake up” & won’t answer your knocking? Whate’er: I’m sure that’s not what the composer implied & I think back then we weren’t so conscious ’bout the iffiness o’ fucking drunk people.

Grade: A

11. Take Me Under

This song’s only problem is that it has a similar theme & sound to “Drown”, — suicidal depression — but isn’t quite as good. Which is not to say it isn’t good: I love those opening matching acoustic & bass notes, then a pause, then louder, rumbling drums & bass while the singer sings, “take me all the way”, in a voice fading as much as the singer seems to want to fade himself. That being said, the very loud chorus & e’en bridge don’t seem to mesh well with the general song’s tone. Contrast “Drown”’s chorus, which was louder than the verses, but didn’t rise to outright shouting.

Grade: B

12. Overrated

Unfortunately, this album ends with the weakest song, with pretentious but vague lyrics ’bout how the youth can’t relate to the system, man, in a voice that’s way too sinisterly cold & dour for such cheesy faux Rage Against the Machine lyrics, followed by shouting how, “¡YOUR SHIT IS OVERRATED!”. ¡Such an edgy radical!

Worse, the music is boring, with basic butt-rock-loud riffs for the opening & chorus. I guess I do kind o’ like the spooky notes under the verses, but e’ery other song on this album does better.

Grade: D

Conclusion

This album still holds up well & I won’t accept anyone who tells me otherwise. The council has made its decree.

Album Grade: A

Bonus

This isn’t part o’ this album @ all, but needs to be seen. The following is Three Days Grace performing a live cover o’ “Lose Yourself” — that’s right: the “Mom’s Spaghetti” Eminem rap song.

Five Finger Death Punch, oft given the amazing appellation, “Five Flavor Fruit Punch”, is 1 o’ those bands that isn’t as well known to you fucking normies like Nickelback or Limp Bizkit are, but to geriatric millennials like me who still care ’bout rock music — well, a’least ’nough to make jokes ’bout it — is infamous for how popularly hated it is — so much so that I was able to find 2 separate topics to the same subreddit within the span o’ a year asking why so many people hate this band.

Now, if you’ve read the previous installments in this series, you know that I grew up loving widely-hated bands like “Disturbed in the house we’re droppin’ plates” & “I love it when you call me big” Papa Roach, & e’en had some nice things to say ’bout corny ✝-rock bands like Thousand Foot Krutch & Skillet; so you’ll be horrified when you learn that tho I did moderately enjoy radio singles like “Walk Away” &, uh… ( looks up their singles ) — o yeah, they made a cover o’ that Bad Company song, “Bad Company” — I ne’er really cared that much ’bout them & definitely didn’t get into their albums the way I did Disturbed’s Believe or Breaking Benjamin’s Phobia as a middle-school dweeb. So you can imagine what li’l eagerness I have to visit this band now.

I chose their 1st album, The Way of the Fist, ’cause… I dunno. ’Twas as good as any other album to try. ¿Is it too late to back out & try a funnier album, like St. Anger? Also, “The Way of the Fist” sounds sexual in a way, which makes me giggle like an infant.

1. Ashes

You can tell this is a HARDCORE album by the way it opens with singer Ivan Moody shouting, “¡RIGHT!”, “¡HATE!”, & “¡BRING IT!” in a way that sounds like he’s trying to hold in a burp while doing so.

If you listen to this song, you pretty much listen to almost all the songs on this album: we get arrhythmically shouted verses where Moody vaguely & tritely tells you how badass & destructive he is, followed by choruses where Moody sings ’bout the same thing, but in a mo’ morose & melodic way… ’cept Moody has such a burly voice that it doesn’t work as well as other nu-metal bands, with mechanical drumming that’s fast, but sounds both soft & thudding & squeaky guitars, all o’ which sounds saturated in fluff due to what I can only assume was terrible production or mixing. We get the expected clichés, like describing his temperament as “hair-trigger” with a “heart […] filled with ice” & calling himself a “savage beast” or a “walking 1-man genocide”, which, uh… is a weird brag to make. Committing genocide doesn’t make you tough; — nobody’s going to convince me Hitler wasn’t a bitch-ass ho — it just makes you an asshole.

If you want a much better song ’bout how e’erything the singer touches turns to shit, try this song from Stabbing Westward, the emos who made that song that went, “You can-not save me / I, can’t, even, saaaave myyyyyyyseeeeeelf / so just saaaave yooourseeeeelf”, that you probably heard on the radio a few times back then but didn’t remember ’cause ’twas just an OK song. They’re honest ’bout what bitch-ass emos they are talking ’bout breaking e’erything they touch:

Grade: D

2. The Way of the Fist

Yawn. E’en the music videos are boring. Wow, wrestling & grasping an iron fence.

Behold this Shakespearean opening:

¡break this shit down!
¡zoltan open the sky!

I thought this would be some dorky-ass pagan-myth shit till I looked up & noticed that 1 o’ their producers was apparently actually named Zoltan.

Ugh. If you don’t want to listen to this song — & you don’t want to, let me just spoil that now — but want to imagine what it sounds like, imagine getting a drumstick & just smacking a drum a bunch o’ times while shouting & maybe sorta trying to match a rhythm, but you keep forgetting what that rhythm was, so it keeps changing, but they’re all the same thumping monotony, ¿so who cares?

As for the lyrics… it’s the same shit as the last song. This is the worst time to be “reviewing” these kind o’ lyrics, too: so soon after the release o’ 4 amazing diss tracks by Kendrick Lamar, who sounds like a legit psychopath in songs like “meet the grahams”, which is for some reason in all lowercase ’cause that’s just how much he made them graham crackers shrunk, hearing generic shit like, “strapped with rage, no patience for victims” or “believe it, you need it, face-down on the fuckin’ floor” will ne’er compare to Kendrick calmly telling someone’s 7-year-ol’ son, “Adonis, I’m sorry that that man is your father…”, like Marlon Brando petting a cat.

But since it’s the 2000s, we do get lines like these:

no mercy, you faggot

O, man, we got that Hollywood-Undead-type lyricism.

Actually, the only reason I brought this line up is ’cause o’ this amazing annotation from Genius:

Here Ivan Moody is projecting his homosexuality by calling the target of the song the homophobic slur “faggot”. This, unfortunately, is not helping Ivan’s case in proving that he isn’t gay.

This is e’en funnier, considering a line that comes later:

talk the shit, your ass is mine

Here we learn that said “five finger death punch”, as well as the “way of the fist”, is a deadly fisting.

According to Genius, “[t]he song is considered one of their heaviest songs by many fans of the band”. I mean, yeah, when all your songs are ’bout equally heavy, then all songs are tied for heaviest song by default, so this is, indeed, 1 o’ the heaviest songs.

Grade: D

3. Salvation

It’s a tragedy when you try to make your song sound all badass, but then you start your pre-chorus with “¡IT’S MONKEY SEE, YOU MONKEY DO!”.

I do give this song props for the interesting idea o’ having a solo in the middle o’ the song, ’tween the 2 verses. It’s too bad said solo is just the same stock noodly squeaky notes that e’ery Five Flamingos Doing Puns song has.

Also, this song loses points for its opening riffs sounding like a Nickelback song.

In addition to being vague like the other songs, this song is less coherent than the other songs, which, granted, makes it a bit mo’ interesting. ¿Is this 1 o’ those cliché protest songs against God & religions? ¿What does “I’m no son of your god” mean? ¿Is he insisting he’s not Jesus, famous son o’ the god o’ the most dominant religion in the west? ¿Who accused him o’ such? ¿Or is he singing from the perspective o’ Jesus in a twisted version o’ this Biblical story where Jesus rejects God’s plans for him & refuses to be prince o’er humanity? ¿& what does he mean when he ends this anti-faith chorus with the twist line, “still I find salvation”? ¿Is this a Nietzschean form o’ salvation that comes from man’s own will rather than any external deity?

Or maybe the songwriter just strung a bunch o’ generic metal words round, including vague mentions o’ religious-adjacent phrases like “faith”, “salvation”, & “son of god” without any clear idea themselves what it’s s’posed to mean in the hopes that somebody might futilely fill in the gaping blanks with their own imagination, thanks to humanity’s need to find logic in e’en the most arbitrary, & in the process may mistake this clumsy inarticulation for subtle literary mystery.

Also, the chorus is very boring &, like many songs on this album, sounds almost like whining mo’ than singing, amplified by this band’s incapability o’ rhythmic variety.

Grade: D

4. The Bleeding

This was the 1 song off this album that I recognize from the radio, &, unsurprisingly, it’s 1 o’ the least bad, since e’en the radio has some standards in terms o’ making a song sound catchy ’nough that one might want to listen to it if one were unaware that there is much better music out there. That is what the radio is for & why people who listen to the radio listens to this type o’ music: it’s already on & doesn’t let you change the song, so you just suck it up, especially since you’re probably listening to this shit be drowned out by the noise o’ heavy wind outside the open windows & screaming kids as you’re driving your minivan down an hour-long highway toward your annoying family for Thanksgiving.

For instance, ¡I can actually think o’ positives to say ’bout this song! I actually kind o’ like the justaposition o’ whate’er those melodic notes — ¿some piano? — are that plays thruout the song & the thick riffs. & this song’s verses actually have rhythm to them, with each line starting with slow syllables, building up, & hanging on the end syllables. I also like the breakdown before the bridge. Moody’s singing isn’t good, ’course, — definitely no David Draiman — but his off-key voice kind o’ works here, adding to the frail tone these lyrics are clearly going for.

Now, having said all that, the chorus is just generic shouting & the lyrics are just generic heavy metal words. I mean, the song is literally just called, “The Bleeding”; ¿can you get mo’ generic than that? We e’en have that stock phrase from 2000s butt rock, “you’re my perfect disease”, which I think originates from Nickelback’s “Figured You Out”, where Kroegerbrand sings, “You’re like my favorite damn disease”. In fact, the most damning thing I can say ’bout this song is I think that song is much better than this. That’s not a joke, I genuinely think that song is better than this. Remember, I liked the album that song was from as a kid, & while it, uh, hasn’t aged so well for me, as you can tell by my review, I was still mo’ positive toward that album than I am for this album, & that’s because I would still rather listen to that album than this.

Grade: C

5. A Place to Die

“A place to die” sounds exactly what I’ll need by the time I’m done with the following 9 songs I have to sift thru before I can stop & listen to good music again ( I’m just going to listen to “Euphoria” for the 20th time ).

Actually, this song sounds better than the previous songs — including “The Bleeding”. Then ’gain, that might just be the vodka kicking in numbing my mind. Also, since it’s the hottest part o’ summer, I have a fan blowing full blast on my face, so I’m getting that aforementioned minivan-drive-on-the-highway experience that is the only correct way to listen to Five Fans Drowning Pools. The opening notes have just the right balance o’ pattern & variation & the chorus has this kind o’ catchy “searching…”, & the singing on the bridge actually sounds pretty good, especially when Moody says, “I slowly drift apart…”. I mean, I would still rather listen to a’least 8 different Nickelback songs o’er this, but this is an improvement o’er the 1st 3 songs a’least.

Grade: C

6. The Devil’s Own

I took the trouble to look up Ivan Moody’s childhood life to make sure he wasn’t abandoned as a child, & could find no evidence o’ such, which relieves me, not just for Moody’s own well-being, but also ’cause it makes me feel better for giggling o’er how ridiculous is this melodramatic song ’bout childhood abandonment — which Genius calls “one of the darkest songs on the record” ( ¿if only “one of the darkest”, what are the other potential candidates?” ). Admittedly, it’s much funnier if you read the lyrics on a website than listen to it in its garbled, fuzzy form, so you can clearly see before your face such lyricism as, “Neglected seed, why?!” or the line “Father, bastard, I’m the Devil’s very own” prefaced with a simple, “Fuck!”, as on the Genius lyrics page.

Grade: S

7. White Knuckles

No, seriously, this cracker be just straight-up yapping thru the verses, & you have to be generous to call the choruses sung, too. & this song’s meaning is the same as half the rest o’ this album: “I’m angry; I want to punch something”. There’s just so many clichés: “sick & tired”, “demons inside command me”, “¿How many people really care?”, & “rescue the world from slavery”… Wait, ¿what? ( “always rappin’ like you ’bout to get the slaves freed” ).

These lines also stood out to me:

i won’t eat another rotten apple
tho i’ve grown to like the taste

If you’ve grown to like the taste, ¿why won’t you eat them? ¿’Cause it’s bad for your health? ¿Why would you add that last line? Nobody needs to hear ’bout your masochism fetish for eating moldy food.

Needless to say, I have stopped caring ’bout how these songs sound anymo’, as they all sound the same & I’m too drunk to pay any attention to any o’ it.

Grade: D

8. Can’t Heal You

O, wow, yet another song ’bout the singer not being able to tolerate another person’s shit. ¿Who are all these assholes you keep running into? You know what they say: if e’eryone’s an asshole, then maybe you’re the asshole. You’re grown-ass men, you should be free to hang out with who you want to hang out with. Just stop hanging around assholes: there, all o’ your problems are solved.

I’m guessing by lines like, “you’re lost inside your pale addictions”, that this is ’bout some junky friend o’ the singer’s, but then near the end you get lines like, “we’re taught to perish but fade away”. ¿Are we taught to do drugs? ¿Who’s teaching us to do drugs? ¿Is this Tom MacDonald & Ben Shapiro rapping — sigh: yes, that really happened — ’bout how gangster rap teaches kids to do drugs? ¿Or is the pale addictions just some vague habits o’ self-destruction? Or maybe I shouldn’t care ’cause it’s a fucking Five Finger Death Punch song ¿WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?

Grade: D

9. Death Before Dishonor

While this song might be 1 o’ the most banal-sounding o’ songs, lyrically it’s a bit mo’ specific ’bout what “haters, […] takers, […] liars, [& …] vultures” Moody’s ranting gainst — tho it’s an odd combination, including the FBI & cops, but also the FCC. I’m not sure what problem he has with these organizations or what it has to do with his preference for “death before dishonor” or his preference for dying o’er having to “live down on my knees”. ’Less this cracker’s cooking up meth or some hard illegal drug or engaging in some domestic terrorism shit, I don’t think the FBI’s interested in him.

But the 3 writers who worked on this poetry saved their finest work for the beginning o’ the 2nd verse:

you imitate the ostracized
put your head beneath the sand

¿D’ya get it? Ostracized, ostrich.

Grade: D

10. Meet the Monster

This song, whose title oozes with cheese, starts with a decent downtuned rhythm, only to explode into this album’s typical wall of o’erproduced noise. The chorus singing sounds particularly warped: ¿a goofy effect or the outcome o’ too much compression? I’m not an audio engineer, so I don’t know.

The lyrics are particularly odd — & by odd, I mean awkward, starting with the eloquent, “it’s not that complicated & you ain’t gotta believe”, & following with lines that don’t e’en feel like they belong together. In fact, “they’ll put me down in a hole before I let you succeed” contradicts “I know you think you’re special, but you ain’t nothin’” 2 lines later: if the person you’re talking to is nothing special, ¿why are you so willing to prevent this person from succeeding? Sounds quite important to you to me.

¿can you read between the lines?
¿or are you stuck in black & white?

¿Why would there be color ’tween 2 black-&-white lines? If the lines are black & white, — if the text is black & the document white — that implies the whole document is black & white, so ’tween them would also be black & white. ’Gain: these lines have nothing to do with each other. I guess I can’t read ’tween the lines, as there must be some hidden line that would connect these 2.

hope I’m on the list of people that you hate

This is just a metaphor that has no connection to reality by itself: nobody creates a list o’ people that they hate but Richard Nixon, & he died several years before this song came out.

it’s time you met the monster that you have helped create

this menacing line is followed by the weakest “bleh” sound, to really rub in how scary it’s s’posed to be.

I’m sick of all of the fiction; we’re gonna settle it

¿Are we? ’Cause I have a subtle hunch that I’m gonna hear ’bout how much you hate this unknown honkey for 3 mo’ songs.

Grade: D

Final Thoughts

Actually, the good news is we don’t have to: those other 3 songs are bonus tracks, including an acoustic version o’ “The Bleeding”, which was definitely warranted from a band like this. Yeah, “Never Enough” was a single that they for some reason didn’t include on the original release o’ this album but did on re-releases as a bonus track & offered for free on their website to those who bought the original version o’ this album s’posedly. It’s all right: it’s much catchier than e’ery song on this list. But the lyrics are ultra vague, e’en by this album’s standards: other than the weird metaphor ’bout people being chalk drawings on the concrete, this song is full o’ “it’s never enough”s, “it’s all fucked”s, & literal, “‘say this’, ‘say that’”s, as if a meta commentary on how bland the lyrics are. If we include that song, it’s the best on this album, but still just a C, & that says something.

Final Grade: D

I’m sorry we went back to back with meh albums. That’s the problem when you try to be mo’ authentic than all the memesters online who just look @ infamously bathic nu-metal bands like Limp Bizkit or “Staind boxer shorts”: turns out most o’ those ol’ 2000s nu-metal & alt-metal bands are mo’ just boring & repetitive than hilariously terrible. This also explains why despite Five Flummoxed Brady Bunches being so widely hated online, they’re not as infamous: they’re not as fun to hate on.

I swear after this we will look @ a much mo’ interesting album — well, to me a’least.

The elephant in the room

Before I start, I have to acknowledge the recent news that Disturbed’s lead singer, David Draiman, played an ultimate boomer move in signing an IDF missile for Israel, which means he’s a shoo-in to be invited to write an op-ed for Newsweek. As I proclaimed in that very same article, we ( me & my schizo mindvoices ) here @ The Mezunian support neither theocratic sides that worship the same made-up god, but believe that tasty black pepper should triumph o’er all, from the river to the sea. This puts David Draiman @ odds with my political views & therefore he must be purged from the council, the Englesist Magical Socialist Party hath spoken. Also, being serious, signing your name on a fucking missile, e’en if used gainst literal Nazi officials who are child molesters & took Drake’s side o’ the Great 2024 Beef War & not a bunch o’ poor people, is tacky as hell. There’s a difference ’tween somberly acknowledging war as sometimes a necessary evil & psychopathically cheering on the death o’ civilians with your cowboy hat hanging on your mitt like the end o’ Dr. Strangelove.

This article mentions that this album we will be looking @ is full o’ themes opposed to the US’s wars in the middle east, but I will go e’en further: those who had listened to “Liberate” from the previous album we looked @ will recall this Biblical recitation specifically mentioning Israel:

out of zion shall come the forth the law
& the word of the lord from jerusalem
nation shall not raise sword against nation
& they shall not learn war anymore
for the mouth of the lord hath spoken

I guess ol’ Yahweh changed their mind, as they do a lot, & decided, <Actually, fuck it, I want to see you crackas make each other bleed. I’m getting bored as fuck>. This is what makes this the ultimate boomer moment: someone who was cool when they were young growing to 180° into the same war-mongering reactionary they protested against when they were young. Ain’t goin’ be me: I’m going to grow into a curmudgeonly tankie, ranting ’bout how western propaganda just doesn’t understand how glorious China’s vanguard party is @ serving the people’s needs, — while not living there, ’course, since those crackas would put bullets in me if they saw what I was typing ’bout them — as opposed to bougie fake western democracies, thank you.

Anyway, so Freddie DeBoer doesn’t have a crying fit, I won’t cancel Disturbed by not making a mocking review o’ 1 o’ their albums ’cause their lead singer decided to try speedrunning his arthritic band back into the spotlight like Ronnie Radke making transphobic jokes. I’m not letting him or any dumb ethnoreligious war meddle with my schedule I spent a whole 10 minutes typing up in LibreCalc. Luckily I already wrote most o’ these song reviews before I learned o’ this news, so it didn’t affect my reviews & therefore this article ’bout an ol’ millennial nu-metal album that hardly anyone remembers will keep its integrity & this very political album won’t be tainted by a political review.

The actual start

The album we’re looking @ today is yet ’gain not The Sickness, but the 1st Disturbed album I heard, their 3rd album, Ten Thousand Fists, whose singles were all o’er the rock radio in late 2005 when I started to get into rock radio. ¿What stands out ’bout this album to make it worth dedicating a review to it? Nothing: it’s very standard alt metal. ¡Enjoy the review!

1. Ten Thousand Fists

This is definitely a banger, especially the bridge where Draiman puts on his whispery “Midlife Crisis” voice & the final chorus, where the song gets amped up. That said, the “power to the people” lyrics are vague, & lines like “leave the weak & haunted behind” & talk o’ “triumph of the soul” sound sus. ¿But who cares? Nobody listens to fucking Disturbed for Noam Chomskiesque cerebral political commentary.

Grade: B

2. Just Stop

This song is less interesting & less memorable, with its thudding riffs & verses & vague lyrics ’bout relationship problems, which don’t mesh well with the creepy voice Draiman puts on in the bridge. I dunno, it’s just funny to hear the lines, “all I ever wanted was to be a real source of compassion for the moment” sung in a daemonic voice. I do kind o’ like the soulful chorus, I guess. I dunno, I think there were better songs to be a single than this.

Grade: C

3. Guarded

This song is e’en less interesting, & was the lead single, to boot, & I may go far ’nough to say the shrill vocals in the chorus are annoying, especially the dragged out “deciiiiiiiiiiide” @ the end. We also get another weird mix o’ relationship troubles & the occult with talk o’ “guarding yourself from the love of another” followed by, “¿why does it sound like the devil is laughing?”. Surely the devil has mo’ treacherous deeds to pull than making people too afraid to commit. The only minor praise I can give is that I do find the weird rhythm/meter on the verses interestingly weird.

Grade: D

4. Deify

You can easily discern this song’s meaning right @ the beginning, where we hear spooky music o’er clips o’ George W. Bush being praised & saying some bullshit ’bout justice or whate’er. I do find it weird that the song includes the lines, “all my devotion betrayed” & “i was too blinded to see how much you’ve stolen from me”. ¿Was anyone truly surprised Bush would get us into wars, considering the US was already re-engaging in military attacks against Iraq after the Gulf War as early as 1998 & that the Bush administration was already making plans for ousting Saddam @ the beginning o’ his term, before 9/11 & was outspoken ’bout such goals in their 2000 platform? On the other hand, a’least this is slightly less vague than “Ten Thousand Fists” & I always liked the DUH-DUH, DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH riff.

Grade: B

5. Stricken

All right, we actually have a funny song here, thanks to the return o’ Draiman’s patented scat-singing:

ya come on lika woman in suffering
nah e’en mah mamma gonna tell me why

This is just ’nother song with ridiculously sinister diction given to what sounds like a mild relationship misunderstanding, with comparisons to “bloodstained hurricanes” & e’en the holocaust. No, I’m not making that last 1 up. Savor this 2nd verse:

you don’t know what your power has done to me
I want to know if I’ll heal inside
I can’t go on with a holocaust about to happen
seeing you laughing another time
you’ll never know why your face has haunted me
my very soul has to bleed this time
another hole in the wall of my inner defenses
leaving me breathless the reason I know…

& people call “Crawling” melodramatic.

This is not as good as Disturbed’s best songs, but is mo’ interesting than the songs we heard before & has iconic lyrics.

Howe’er, if you want a much better version o’ this song, I present to you:

Grade: ⚡

6. I’m Alive

Yeah, the repetitious “duh-duh, duh-duh” singing @ the start o’ e’ery line in the verses, many times just “ne-ver a-gain”, don’t really gel with me, nor the sing-songy chorus or the bland, “I’m alive”, repeated afterward. Lyrically, this is just a, “I’m-a gonna be myself” anthem, but sounding like it’s coming from a medieval monk, with such vague but grandiloquent diction:

— of living within the world of the jaded
they kill inspiration, it’s my obligation —

&

denying the sin, my art, my redemption
I carry the torch of my fathers before me

Usually when metal bands sing like this it’s when talking ’bout epic battles ’tween dragons & holy divers riding tigers, not people complaining ’bout how they’re not going to be a part o’ this system.

Grade: D

7. Sons of Plunder

This is a much catchier song, especially the internal rhyme in the middle o’ the 1st two lines o’ the chorus where Draiman slows down:

as the countless numbers hunger for worldwide renown
all the pimping sons of plunder will roll up their sleeves

That said, it’s kind o’ weird that they make this “fuck all these other uncreative hacks” song on what seems like a much less creative & much mo’ standard hard rock album than previous albums. I do now wonder if this “new sound” the singer feels surrounded by is in fact nu-metal. 2005 is ’bout when it started to peter out, so this rant that seems like an iconoclastic attack gainst this new fad, in fact, sounds mo’ like jumping on an already-swelling bandwagon gainst an already-dying genre.

Still, I’d take e’en a hypocritical jab gainst other nu-metal bands any day o’er more bland romantic drama songs, especially 1 as catchy as this.

Grade: B

8. Overburdened

¿Apparently this is ’bout soldiers? This seems weird given the lines, “¿how was I considered evil? / pleasures taken in this life”. I wouldn’t consider going off to war living off in hedonism. Still, I like the concept o’ humanity being so wicked that hell is o’erburdened with dead people. It’s a very slayeresque concept, which is now a high art concept I’ve invented. Musically, this is also the most interesting song on this album, with its slow but steady rhythm matching the steady march o’ people in a purgatorylike state. I don’t know if I’ve made this hot take before, but I think Disturbed is better @ saturnine songs than the “O YEA WE GONNA BEAT SOME SHIT BOYS” songs, — yes, that is the precise name o’ the genre — especially on a mo’ general hard-rock album like this.

Grade: A

9. Decadence

In a weird reversal o’ most albums I listen to for this series, this album seems to be getting better as it gets deeper into the deep cuts. I ne’er remembered this song that much before, & I do still find the verses repetitious, — tho that could arguably fit with the subject matter — but did always kind o’ like the sound o’ the chorus; but I ne’er realized till now that this wasn’t a generic song ’bout greed being evil, like the title implies, but uses the mo’ classical definition o’ decadence, literal decay, as imagery for the feeling o’ depression. I dunno, there are some stock phrases here & there, like the ubiquitous “dead inside”, but that metaphor feels both fresh & fitting. Basically, I’m saying Disturbed are mo’ serious artists than Radiohead.

Grade: B

10. Forgiven

I know this song is repetitive, but like “Liberate” from their 2nd album, it’s so catchy to sing along with, “FOOH-GIVAHN TO ME, FOOH-GIVAHN TO ME”. Plus, like the previous 2 songs, I like the story this song tells, this time ’bout a soldier forgiving a solider who killed them ’cause they know that soldier will likely die soon themselves: “you’re just another dead man living”. & the whispery repetitive chanting o’ this song matches this song’s meaning as essentially a death prayer.

Grade: B

11. Land of Confusion

That’s right: the official music video is an AMV. Disturbed knew what was hip with the edgy metal kids @ the time.

Here comes a hot take: while I definitely think Genesis’s original version o’ this song had better music, with its Sega-Genesis-like synths being much mo’ interesting than Disturbed’s plain hard rock riffs & drums, I think Draiman’s singing is mo’ interesting than Phil Collins, especially since Draiman is much better @ staying on rhythm, filling in the awkward pause in “the men of steel… men of power” with “the men of steel, these men of power”. But also Draiman has a mo’ forceful voice, being a metal singer & all, while Collins’ is much thinner & lighter, which certainly works better on softer songs, — I don’t want to imagine Draiman gruffly ah-ahing thru “In the Air Tonight” — but not a song that’s clearly s’posed to have as much force as this.

It actually surprises me that this is the 1st cover I’ve run into so far & only now do I realize how difficult ’twould be to grade it, since in terms o’ lyrics all Disturbed had to do was not pick a shitty song to cover, & they definitely didn’t do that here. I do like that they picked a song from a genre quite off from alt metal, but still fits the tone o’ this album.

Grade: N/A

12. Sacred Lie

While the lyrics are less interesting than some o’ the others on this album, with its standard fantasy/metal/biblical diction o’ “damnation”, “sacred”, “fear”, etc. — to the point that e’en Genius basically just calls it “another song that talks about war” — I do like the rhythm o’ the singing, especially the chorus & the way the pitch rises @ the end; & while the music under the verses is basic plodding, I do like the music under the chorus, especially the drum rhythm.

Grade: B

13. Pain Redefined

This song I’m less keen on. The verses’ vocal rhythm is interesting a’least, tho rather plodding, but the pre-chorus is way too repetitive & e’en mo’ plodding, & the chorus sounds like it should be sung in a church, especially with the line, “I have fallen again”. The music also sounds way too mechanical for the subject matter. I do like how Draiman has to clear something out o’ his throat @ the very end. I’m not sure why it’s on this song, but it is.

According to Genius:

“Pain Redefined” is a song about when your sensory abilities become overwhelmed, you lose control of your senses, and you can’t really trust them to make judgement of the world around anymore.

So it’s basically an emo song.

Grade: D

14. Avarice

You know you’re listening to a filler track when the 1st lines are such deep philosophical entreaties like, “politics & evil / all 1 in the same”. In contrast to “Decadence”, this song truly is just greed = bad. Also, the chorus barely sounds like a chorus, having a steady rhythm. The music under the verses & choruses are also plain, especially under the verses, where they’re just this bland “DUH DUH DUH, DUH DUH DUH”.

That said, I do kind o’ like the instrumental part after the 2nd verse, especially the horse-stomping drums, & the perishing bridge vocals.

Grade: D

Final thoughts

Yup, that sure was an album that existed. Join me next time as I troll y’all e’en mo’ & do Disturbed’s B-sides album ( spoiler alert: it’s actually better than this album ).

Final Grade: C

I have recently compiled a long list o’ e’ery 2000s nu-metal or alt rock album I will probably e’er review on this blog — ’nough to last several years, mo’ than 60. & o’ all those albums, I promise you: none will be as cringe as this album. Yes, including BrokeNCYDE & Family Force 5, who are all on the list. Arguably Falling in Reverse are mo’ cringe, but they’re too late to be included in this series, so Ronnie Radke’s precious feelings are safe from the venom o’ my keyboard & he’ll have to stick to dressing up as Danthony Phantomtano for Halloween to occupy his time.

Hollywood Undead is not so safe, howe’er. I would joke that all I need to say to close my case is point out that this band started on MySpace, but to MySpace’s credit, they also spawned the ol’ band Drill Queen, — now mostly known as the band who created the Jimstephaniequisition song — who are not nearly as cringe. So instead I will make my case with a different statement: this is a band that combines whiteboy gangster rap & goth emo. ’Course combining hip hop & emo wasn’t that wild by that point: Korn & Linkin Park did it all the time. But Jonathan Davis & Mike Shinota weren’t talking ’bout how they’re gonna point their gun @ yo son.

The album we’ll be looking @ is their debut, Swan Songs. Despite how obviously bad this album is, my rock-bottom standards in my high school years liked it fine. I didn’t go around telling people ’twas my favorite or e’en remember it much beyond the year that I 1st listened to it & ripped a couple songs onto a blank CD ’long with random unrelated songs from CDs I checked out from the library, but I somehow didn’t feel too ashamed to play this music out loud @ places, & nobody shamed me for doing so, ’cause that’s just what music was in the 2000s. E’en I can’t remember how this was e’er allowed to happen, so there is no chance I could explain it to people who weren’t there @ the time, & I don’t think any good could come from younger people understanding this savage relic. But we can get some good laughs out o’ making fun o’ it, so that’s what we’re going to do.

1. Undead

O my god, ¿where do I e’en start with this song? Apparently its music takes Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train”, but fucks with its notes & makes it computerized & shitty.

This song is a brag rap; but rather than exemplify any actual clever wordplay or multilayered rhyming or paint a believable picture o’ someone who is a legit threat, they mostly sling around the same small #s o’ the same “motherfuckers”, as well as plenty o’ homophobic slurs, ’cause ’twas the noughties, & brag ’bout how they love getting drunk & crash their cars. I’m not kidding: they have a line that goes, “’cause we drunk-drive Cadillacs, we never go far”, implying that their drunk asses crash into a wall just after they start driving.

& if that doesn’t make your peepees shrink in their magnificent presence, a’least a full verse is dedicated to insecurely whining ’bout the haters, ’cause that always makes you look cool. It’s especially badass when it comes with lines like these:

you make me wanna run around pulling my guns out and shit
you’re tempting me to run my mouth and call you out on this, bitch

¡Don’t you dare tempt me to… call you out? & then you call them a bitch, so you’re already calling them out. Too late. Looks like it didn’t take long for you to give into that temptation.

They follow this up by whining ’bout people misinterpreting their lyrics:

¿how ignorant you gotta be to believe any of this?
you need to slit your wrists, get pissed, and go jump off a bridge
what, ¿you can’t see the sarcasm in the verses I spit?

Crackas, this is your 1st album: you don’t have haters yet ’cause nobody knows who the fuck you are. Nobody’s going to slit their wrist ’cause fucking Hollywood Undead told them to.

I should add that the chorus to this hard-edge song has lines like “get up out the way” & “I don’t give a fuck what you think or say”, which surely impressed the 12 year ol’s o’ 2008.

& then J-Dog, with the most generic rap name, comes in with these hard lines:

white boys with tattoos p-pointing right @ you
we’re breaking everything, r-rowdy like a classroom
pack of wolves ’cause we don’t follow the rules
& when you’re running your mouth our razor blades come out

Better watch out, ’cause this rowdy classroom’ll give you a close shave.

Genius claims the song has the following lines:

because there’s nothing in my life except my dick & what I spit
so my dick is in my hand when I respond to faggots talking shit
speaking of fag, already rapped with the drag
we killed him then we stuffed his body in the Cadillac

But I didn’t hear this on either the YouTube Music version o’ this song or the version I ripped off the CD I borrowed from the library way back in 2008, presumably the original release. I could understand why they would want to remove it, as it goes beyond the casual homophobia o’ throwing round slurs @ anyone & e’eryone to specifically talking ’bout carrying out a hate crime gainst someone in drag.

In any case, it’s impossible to take seriously that these clowns could carry out such a crime, anyway, especially when they follow it with these hard-ass lines:

¿so what the fuck you know about being a gangster?
¿& what the fuck you know about being in danger?
you ain’t doing this so you know you’re just talking shit

& in his defense, he’s right: I ain’t making cheesy raps ’bout being a whiteboy gangster & I am talking shit.

Grade: D

2. Sell Your Soul

We follow that hard-ass gangster brag rap with a bizarre mix o’ an emo song, starting with generic piano notes, & a “fuck the haters” anthem as the verses & chorus devolve into shouting & screaming. Like the previous song, the basis for this hate is vague; — beyond I guess the fact that this music is goofy — but unlike that song the way this writer describes it is mo’ detailed & much mo’ melodramatic, with such lines as:

¿how did it come to this? ¿how did I know it was you?
it was a bad dream asphyxiated watch me bleed
the life support was cut the knot was too tight
they push and pull me but they know they’ll never win

&

my heartbeat stumbles & my backbone crumbles
i feel, ¿is it real?, as the lynch mob doubles
they want blood & they’ll kill for it
drain me & they’ll kneel for it
burn me @ the stake met the devil made the deal for it
guillotine dreams, yeah, their guillotine gleams
the blood of their enemies watching while they sentence me
sentencing ceased sentence deceased
& watch them bask in the glory of their holy disease

I don’t get the point o’ this song or what the listener is s’posed to feel — & for as cheesy as most nu-metal is, I understand what pretty much e’ery Thousand Foot Krutch, Skillet, or Papa Roach song is s’posed to evoke int he listener.

Grade: F

3. Everywhere I Go

& then after that emo song ’bout the struggles o’ the hood life we get a song ’bout how they like to show their “weenies” — that’s the word they use — to women in a kind o’ hoedown ’bout how “bitches always know” with a wacky accent & cheap artificial music that sounds like an e’en worse Eminem song off Encore, but without the creativity — yes, I will defend Encore compared to this.

& the lyrics in this song make the previous 2 sound like Eminem in comparison. The 1st line o’ the 1st verse, in a jerky stop-&-go flow:

wake up, grab beer, grab rear, shave beard

We also get some o’ the most forced, & yet also unimaginable, references e’er:

& I’ll punk the pussy like I’m Ashton Kutcher

I’m like Cheech, you got the Chong, hitting up this beer bong

¿Is “the Chong” e’en a real thing? ¿What is the point o’ bringing up Cheech & Chong? You’re not e’en smoking weed; you’re just drinking. ¿You couldn’t e’en do drug as hard as I do?

I’ll be straight: this is the only song so far that I’ve just refused to listen to all the way thru ’cause it’s so intolerable & makes me deathly ’fraid someone somewhere will somehow hear it seep thru the headphones, it’s so embarrassing. E’en while reading thru the lyrics I could only scan them, as they are just humiliating the read. Literally the worst nu-metal song e’er — & yet it somehow merited a music video.

Grade: ☠️

4. No Other Place

See, now this song is actually pretty fun. Gone is the artificial emo shit or try-hard butthurt “fuck the haters” crap. Instead it’s just a song ’bout partying with a decent beat. There are a million better rap songs out there, e’en in that era, which was also a bad time for hiphop as for rock, but with the rock-bottom standards this album gives us, this is a godsend.

’Course, the lyrics are all dumb, specially the chorus, where the singer for some reason feels it necessary to bring up to the woman he’s asking to dance that she “got a fat ass, but you shake it like you ain’t a hoe”. ¿Do hoes not shake well? I would expect that hoes, whose job is to be sexy, should be the best @ shaking.

Grade: C

5. No. 5

This is basically “No Other Place”, but a sillier & lazier. The chorus has the singer in a very high-pitched, squeaky voice squeal, “& all the kids in the hood come on & wave & shake your hands”, which is just as rad as the average chorus line in a Thousand Foot Krutch song, while the lyrics just keep rhyming “drunk” & “fuck” repeatedly, as well as mo’ forced references that come out o’ nowhere to Paris Hilton & Bob Saget. & then the bridge tirelessly lists how all 20 members o’ this band “make the booty drop”. I will give Johnny 3 Tears, as lame as his name is, that he has charisma while rap/singing/whate’er; it’s just too bad they couldn’t get a better lyricist.

Hold on, ¿what are these lyrics, tho?

ladies show me your treats like it’s Halloween
you got a fake id & you’re 17

Genius helps us understand this perplexing pair o’ lines with the following annotation:

Charlie Scene wants to have sex with an underaged girl.

¡Thanks, Genius!

Grade: 🚨

6. Young

O god, now we’re back to the fake emo stuff, & this is the nadir. You know a song’s good when the 1st line o’ the 1st verse is, “i see the children in the rain like the parade before the pain”. Like Simple Plan’s telling these crackers to tone it down. ¿What the fuck is “the parade before the pain”? Also, after the last song I don’t want to hear this band talking ’bout looking @ children.

But during the prechorus they get pumped & angry — ¡they’re raging gainst this vague machine! — as they talk ’bout marching to the drums &… ¿being numb? I’ve ne’er heard someone so aggressive ’bout not feeling anything @ all.

What they’re marching against is, as I said, vague. The only specific line is some rag gainst “medication for the kids with no reason to live”. Clearly a bunch o’ people in costumes marching around is a better cure for suicidal depression than medicine based on peer-reviewed studies.

I really feel the whiplash when we hit this line:

but you take all we are the innocence of our hearts

It’s hard to take seriously the innocence o’ the hearts o’ people who had just gifted us such sentimental lyrics as “everywhere I go bitches always know that Charlie Scene has got a weenie that he loves to show” & “you got a fat ass, but you shake it like you ain’t a hoe”.

& if you didn’t think this song was excruciating ’nough after the 2 verses, the bridge has a children’s choir sing, “till the angels save us all”. I wish they could save me from this song.

Grade: F

7. Black Dahlia

¿Mo’ emo shit? I thought these were s’posed to be badass gangsters. These lyrics are so cliché that they actually talk ’bout how they cut themselves — rhyming “cuts” with “fucked up”, no less — & make constant references to tears being “dried up now” &, my favorite, “these tears are deadly”. ¡O fuck! ¡Don’t fuck with this bro’s tears, dogg! ¡You make ’em want to run around pulling their guns out & shit & calling you out on this bitch!

The verses are rapped in this stilted, jerky 1, 2, 3, 4 meter with the most obvious rhymes:

¿you feel bad? ¿you feel sad? i’m sorry hell no fuck that
it was my heart, it was my life, it was my start, it was your knife
this strife, it dies, this life & these lies
i wish i could’ve quit you, I wish I never missed you
& told you that I loved you every time I fucked you

This last line has the lyricist so desperate to rhyme a word “love” with “fuck” ’cause they couldn’t think o’ any other word that they invented this bizarre scenario where someone regrets not saying, <Remember that I love you, baby>, e’ery time just before ramming his cock into her — ’cause that’s a normal thing to do, not, like, when you meet.

& underneath these tragic lyrics are a generic midi sample that sounds like ’twas rejected by Wesley Willis, with the softest o’ drum beats — mo’ like plastic slaps.

Grade: F

8. This Love, This Hate

OK, now this is just nursery rhyme bullshit, with that obnoxious squeaky “DOO-DOO-DOO-DOO DOO-DOO-DOO” jingle thruout the whole song while the singer sings generic lyrics ’bout being strong & shields & lions & shit with the most grating, nasally voice, specially when saying, “& we got each other’s backs” or in the chorus. What the title “this love, this hate” has to do with this song, by the way, I have no idea.

Fitting this juvenile song are juvenile lyrics that struggle to cobble together words into halfway English sentences to keep its common rhymes:

& we once also had a story too
you can see that good men only come in few

I, too, would say that phrase, “& we once also had a story, too”, ’cause I am also an alien.

Howe’er this song does sum up my feelings for it with these lines:

i don’t wanna live this destiny
it goes on endlessly

Honestly, I think I can’t stand this song e’en mo’ than “Everywhere I Go”, which a’least was somewhat funny & audacious in how bad it is.

Grade: F

9. Bottle And A Gun

After the previous boring whiny songs, this song’s absolute stupidity is much better appreciated, as well as the much better deeper, darker beats — which, granted, just sounds like the level theme to a generic FPS.

The lyrics are, ’course, dumb & repetitive: “Funny Man” telling girls to drop their panties like he did in “No. 5” while bragging ’bout how he “play a bitch like Nintendo”, after which someone helpfully shouts, <¡Zelda!> in the background to remind you o’ what Nintendo makes, & Charlie Scene’s rapping ’bout being drunk & telling women to shake their asses ’gain while giving such killer lines, like telling women to smoke his pole like a Marlboro. Some lines don’t e’en make much sense, like when Funny Man says he’s “sexual like I’m hetero”. ¿Is he implying that LGBTQ+ people aren’t sexual? That’s an interesting inverse o’ the stereotypes that conservatives have gainst them.

On the other hand, the pop culture references are less awkward: the Charlie’s Angels bit a’least felt relevant, albeit obvious, & the line ’bout buying Tom’s soul back from Rupert Murdoch was probably the only legit kinda funny thing they said on this album — albeit it requires knowing ’bout News Corp buying MySpace & Hollywood Undead’s origins on MySpace to get it. Also, Specific Media would do Charlie Scene’s work for him just 3 years later.

That said, these poseurs have the gall to use the line, “Hollywood Undead ain’t nothing to fuck with” stolen straight from Wu-Tang Clan. That’s sacrilege.

The chorus is ridiculous, singing in a soft, soulful croon how they “can show you how to hump without making love”. I am curious ’bout that & what it e’en means, but tragically, tho they claim they can show how to do this, they do not actually do so in this song.

Grade: D

Intermission

Speaking o’ Wu-Tang, I think we’ve all earned a break from this album, so let’s listen to why Wu-Tang Clan are truly nothing to fuck wit:

All right, let’s get back to work.

10. California

This is just “Shitty California Love”. ¿Why would anyone want to listen to this song when that song already does e’erything this song meagerly attempts to do fails? ¿& why do so many people make so many songs ’bout just vaguely California as a whole? California is the most populous state in the US & is the media center o’ the world: it’s not all that impressive that you’re vaguely somewhere in this massive state like e’eryone else involved in media. You might as well make a song representing the entire US @ this point. Nowadays rappers should have to talk ’bout specific territories in California, like LA, San Francisco, or San Diego — or if they want to be exotic, Oakland or Sacramento. It specially looks silly to see these doofuses in their costumes pretending to represent a state that hundreds of other rappers already pretend to represent — & is still represented by St. Tupac, as canonized by the Council o’ Rappers. These crackers couldn’t e’en represent North Dakota.

This is the most generic song on this album full o’ generic songs with generic lyrics that just say stuff just to rhyme, e’en tho the rhymes themselves are so predictable:

horny like a sickness, quickies with the quickness
pussy like it’s business, work it like it’s fitness
listen while I spit this, game at all these bitches
now I’m gonna hit this & fuck it till I’m dickless

None o’ these metric feet have any relevance to each other, & “quickies with the quickness” is both redundant & involves a word like “quickness” that nobody actually uses outside o’ bad songs trying to force a rhyme ’cause it sounds awful.

Grade: F

11. City

O’ all the emo songs — yes, Hollywood Undead’s manic depression has switched back from their manic high o’ fucking bitches back down to their emo crying — this is the best o’ them. Yes, the lyrics are vague & repetitive ’bout making the city burn & repeat the same weird rants ’bout medication as “Young” & the chorus’s soft, soulful croon does not fit talking ’bout acts o’ citywide terrorism @ all & the soft slap drums are annoying. But the verses themselves have some pretty interesting rhythms, specially the 2nd verse, where the singer jumps from rapid shouting to a slower tempo, in an erratic way that fits a song ’bout chaotic terrorism.

That being said, I can’t help but laugh @ the hardcore simping the Genius annotation does:

Considering the tumulus/violent [sic] environment that Hollywood Undead transcended as a result of Swan Songs and Desperate Measures, this is a track resonant with the societal ills that families in Los Angeles face.

These 2 clauses don’t fit together. ¿What “tumulus” & violent environment did Hollywood Undead so-poetically transcend as a result o’ this album, ¿& how would that resonate with regular people’s problems? ¿What problems do Los Angeles citizens face that others don’t?

“City” is pretty metaphoric and self-referential; considering the band’s ascent to fame, they asked if anybody wished to accompany them during their rise, an ascent comparable to arson enactments.

1st, there’s no “pretty metaphoric”: metaphoric is binary — it either is metaphoric or isn’t. 2nd, LOL on “considering the band’s ascent to fame”. Fuck J. Cole’s big 3 — there’s only the big undead. There’s a reason Kendrick was afraid to diss real Gs Hollywood Undead ( tho, as we saw in an earlier song, a’least 1 o’ them apparently likes them 17 like Drake ).

Grade: C

12. The Diary

You’d think I’d go all-in hard on this song, arguably the most emo o’ emo songs on this album, but I’m mo’ mixed. While the opening sad strings are cheesy as hell & the singer singraps his depression like he’s in a rap battle, ending 1 verse with the line, “pour myself a whiskey & go back to sleep, bitch” like he’s emo Jesse Pinkman, the lyrics are mo’ specific & real ’bout depression than some generic tripe ’bout “deadly” tears & shields & lions & shit, talking specifically ’bout bitterness @ a father shared with his mother — tho no detail on why — & what seem to be shout outs to family members. This song e’en ties into the party sex songs, with the line, “& hoes you see hoes you see I’m just in a rut” recontextualizing the singer’s hedonistic partying as an attempt to fill a vacant life in a similar way to Weezer’s ( much better song ) “Tired of Sex”. While repetitive, the repetition works better for this song, since the repetition matches the feeling o’ being “just in a rut”. In essence, it’s an emo song, but it’s a halfway competent 1. If not for the hokey music & the squeaky voice o’ the chorus, I’d go far ’nough to call it full-on good.

Grade: C

13. Pimpin’

& after that raw song o’ deep suicidal depression, we get a song called “Pimpin’”, where the chorus goes, “we ride with gangsters and the pimping’s easy”. This song’s fine. I do kind o’ like the rhythm. ( Yawn ). ¿This album’s still going? This is less generic than “California”, but not by much.

Grade: D

14. Paradise Lost

OK, after that song ’bout gangster pimping now we have a very angsty song ’bout how angry the singer is @ God for — ¿Who fucking knows? ¿What is up with the whiplash on this album? ¿Is it intentional?

God, I’ve tried
¿am I lost in your eyes?

Maybe if you tell God they have a fat ass but they shake it like they ain’t a hoe they’ll give you salvation.

The singing is obnoxious, with the verses having this incessant thudding “augh augh augh augh”, while the chorus is the typically squeaky squeal. Meanwhile, the music is electronic goop. The only notable thing is that the opening notes o’ this song are just straight up stolen from John Carpenter’s Halloween theme, but slowed down. What a great song on which to end the album.

Grade: F

15. Pain

’Cept YouTube Music was nice ’nough to offer me the “Collector’s Edition” with 7 extra tracks. ¡That’s 1.5 times the fun!

This is the same typical screamo shit, with those patented Kroeger-brand emo lyrics:

the next of this youth with their necks through this noose
were told lies like it’s truth and we suspect that it’s you

Yeah, telling “lies like it’s truth” is, indeed, how lying works. Thank you for that clarification that clearly doesn’t just exist to force in a corny rhyme.

The singer then goes on ’bout strapping kids with an AK, which I thought was ’bout how society was making kids into school shooters or something, but Genius thinks it’s ’bout leading kids into the military. See, the problem is that they’ll throw in these short quips ’bout medicine or war, but don’t elaborate on them.

Anyway, later in that verse the singer says he’ll “watch the world die thru crimson eyes”, & then says “I cry, it turns to night” in a monotone voice like he’s telling his mom what flavor o’ TV dinner he wants that night.

Grade: F

Intermission 2

To prove that I don’t hate emo, — I certainly have no room to judge, given that I grew up with Papa “I cut my heart open, I sew myself shut” Roach — just bad emo mixed with whiteboy gangster bullshit, here’s a much, much better emo song called “Pain” as a much needed 2nd break:

16. The Natives

Mo’ midi music, only to add midi guitar during the 2nd verse.

I don’t want to hear this cracker talk ’bout “beef” while singing in such a squeaky voice.

Charlie Scene’s attempts to praise himself in the 2nd verse are adorable: yes, keep telling yourself you take it seriously & that you’ll keep getting props — ¡which are like “permanent high-5”s, dude! — for the rest o’ your lives & that your rhymes are tight — ¡just before a line with an awkward pause @ the end ’cause it wasn’t long ’nough to fit the meter! Maybe ’twas on purpose. A Genius annotation is nice ’nough to explain to the listeners that “‘Tight’ is slang for ‘cool’ or ‘good’”, which should be very helpful for the 80-year-ol’ grandma listening & wanting to know what this hiphippin’ youngfolks be all about in the cabbage patch, daddy-o. This annotation also expresses perplexity @ the description o’ the band as “6 white guys”, when 1 o’ the members is Mexican, apparently oblivious to the fact that there do, in fact, exist Mexican honkeys — & looking @ his profile on the Hollywood Undead Wiki, he does, in fact, appear to be un blanquito.

Grade: D

17. Knife Called Lust

With such a title, ¿would it surprise you to hear it start with electro clown music & then a “¡YEAHT’s GO!”. This belching voice — who is apparently “Shady Jeff”, because there’s no better rap alias than putting a dangerous-sounding adjective before a nerdy name — also nicely helps Deuce sing the latter part, “this love, this hate, is burning me away” with a raspy scream, which goes together with Deuce’s squeaky voice like if Thom Yorke & David Draiman did a duet.

I cannot get o’er how fucking generic these lyrics are. Verse 2 starts with the line, “I’m mad @ the fact that your dad is an addict”. ¿Who talks like that? ¿Is this song from the point o’ view o’ a robot? “Panic” is rhymed with “tragic”; “fuck some girl” is rhymed with “fuck the world”; “choice”, “voice”; “love”, “trust”.

Grade: F

18. The Loss

sick with myself, but I’ve got no one else
so I give it to myself, it’s the only thing that helps
it’s the same thing, this pain thing that keeps me from sleeping
& screaming to God I must be motherfucking dreaming

So, I read the 1st 2 lines &, I’m sorry, when I see “I’ve got no one else” followed by “so I give it to myself”, the only logical assumption is masturbation; but then the 3rd & 4th line talk ’bout some vague pain & screaming @ God, but it’s too late, the image o’ some angry whiteboy jerking it under the sheets has already arrived, unrequested, & any mood for epic drama ’bout nightmares & God has been killed before it could take the stage. This is the problem with lyrics as vague as “give it to myself”.

¿have you ever met a living legend, just a real friend?

Tragically, no one informed J-Dog that nobody calls friends “living legends” — tho we do call speedrunners “fucking legends”.

¿who planned his end & where do I begin? you said it was pretend
& when the bullet went thru it took more than just you
it took 2, it was you, it was me & suddenly

Bitch, you did not just describe your homey’s suicide with these nursery rhymes.

¿how could someone say they’re helpless & then they act so selfish?

O, cool, ’nother “suicidal people are selfish” line. That’s what psychologists always recommend you say to suicidal people: “quit bein’ a selfish-ass bitch & stay alive, bruh”. A’least Thousand Foot Krutch had the excuse that they probably believed in 1 o’ the weird sub-branches o’ Christianity that still thinks suicide is a sin. ¿& haven’t these crackers been spitting rhymes ’bout their own suicide idealization thruout this whole album? ¿Who are they to judge?

¿you thought you found an exit? like I said, let’s end this

this line is the most perplexing on this whole album. you say that suicide is no exit, but then follow by saying, “let’s end this”, which presumes that you have the real “exit”; but these lyrics imply that your friend is already dead. ¿so what are you going to give them after they’re already dead that’s a “real” exit? ¿Are you afraid that their ghost will languish the earth till you finalize some ritual?

I just wanna say goodbye
disappear with no one knowing
I don’t wanna live this lie
smiling to the world unknowing

This is the weirdest call & response song e’er: “Don’t commit suicide: it’s selfish & makes me feel bad & if you were a true friend you wouldn’t give a shit ’bout your bitchy problems & would think o’ how I would suffer”. “No, I think suicide is the answer”. ¡& that’s the final say!

Grade: “¿Who can relate? ¡Whoo!”

19. Bitches

OK, since these are technically just bonus tracks, this time I won’t make fun o’ yet another mood whiplash o’ a song ’bout suicide being followed by a song called “Bitches”, which has the following deep lyrics in its chorus:

bitches I hope you know
I won’t stop till I hit that ho
baby come say hello
& get your drunk ass over here let’s bone

This song has this very generic boop-boop beat with these cheap claps that —

this girl’s 17, now I’m a pedophile

OK, I think we’re done with this song.

By the way, I love Genius’s annotation for this line, which is just a blurry face with the expression I imagine any listener would have hearing this.

Grade: 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨

20. The Kids

¡Nope! ¡Scene, you stay the fuck away from those kids! Quit staring @ their “ghetto jeans” & telling them to shake their asses.

& I’m ne’er going to take your song seriously in how rad these kids you’re preying on are when you list MySpace as 1 o’ the hip things they do — presumably ’long with playing with slinkies & collecting pogs & Davy Crockett hats. You might as well list them being fluent in JavaScript & Klingon like Weird Al’s “White & Nerdy”. Nor am I going to take you seriously when you mention beef with someone with the name EvanThomas750, especially when Genius tells me that’s just a sockpuppet account you made up for the lolz, or give shout outs to someone with the MySpace username “Ndlestremofbombs”.

Also, we’ve established that this band is “6 white guys”, ¿so who’s the guy saying, “niggas in shit alley show me where you @”? Genius tells me it’s Deuce, who’s definitely a cracker.

Anyway, this song is the same annoying electrojunk as the rest & I definitely don’t want to hear 1 o’ these guys repeat, “fuck the pain away to make it thru the day” in a song called “The Kids”.

Grade: F

Intermission 3

I know we just have 1 song left, but since I brought up “White & Nerdy”…

21. Circles

We start with some harplike dreamy plinking & 4 lines that are the closest Hollywood Undead has come to serious lyrics that don’t sound hackneyed or embarrassing:

take my hand let’s go
somewhere we can rest our souls
we’ll sit where it’s warm
you say, <look we’re here alone>

OK, so they’re not the most original lines: but compared to lines like, “I’m mad @ the fact that your dad is an addict”, this sounds like Wordsworth.

But then the song devolves into the same generic nursery rhymes o’ “find my purpose”, “everything was so worthless”, “I didn’t deserve this”, “you were perfect”, & comparing this girl to an angel & saying you need a savior & blood &… I’m almost wishing Deuce would go back to telling girls they shake it like they ain’t a hoe.

Grade: F

The last 3 songs are just remixes o’ the “Black Dahlia”, o’ all songs, & I don’t need to review them. They’re all repetitive, o’erproduced electrojunk. We are finally free from the cringe… till next month.

Skillet is a band most people have probably completely forgotten ’bout. If you don’t remember them, the best way I can describe them is, “they were the band whose songs e’eryone made Naruto AMVs for”. No, not Linkin Park — tho they also had plenty o’ Naruto AMVs &, in fact, made the official music video for their recently-released “Lost” — somehow still sung by the deceased Chester Bennington, presumably during breaks from hanging out with Tupac in hiding — a professionally-made AMV.

They are also, like our good friends Thousand Foot Krutch, yet ’nother example o’ that holy genre known as Christian nu-metal. & unlike most ✝-rockers who try to downplay their association so they don’t get conflated with weirdos like that rainbow-haired dude with the sign who murdered people, Skillet’s lead singer, John Cooper, isn’t ’fraid to go full-Flanderization: a couple years ago he perhaps tried to scam his band back into relevancy the same way Trapt did by saying something idiotic & backward; in this case ’twas less dramatic than expressing admiration for male students being raped by female teachers & mo’ laughably pathetic: comparing the song “WAP” to Hitler speeches or something. Clearly he’s not fucking with that wet-ass pussy: he only fucks pussies that are as dry as a desert. Like most things conservatives say nowadays, ’twas an incoherent jumble o’ conservative gripes & memes that don’t fit together & aren’t e’en quite right: @ 1 point he whines that “you cannot sell” some Dr. Seuss books on eBay, when you very clearly can, — in fact, thanks to the fears sparked by this controversy, one could probably make much mo’ money than usual selling these now-scarce books on eBay — presumably referring to Dr. Seuss Enterprises voluntarily ceasing publication o’ new editions o’ books with racist depictions, much as Warner Bros. had done to certain racist Looney Tunes shorts way back in the late 60s to no controversy.

Anyway, we won’t be focusing on that inanity, but on the music itself, which, sadly, is a bit mo’ competent than Thousand Foot Krutch, but also less funny. Said album I have chosen is the generic-titled Awake, released in 2009, @ the end o’ the age o’ nu-metal, but not too late for this album to go double-platinum & having its singles play regularly on the radio. Admittedly, their 2006 Comatose, with hits like “Whispers in the Dark” &, well, “Comatose”, probably has a greater hold on people’s memory — to the extent that this band does still remain in people’s memory — & is the mo’ well-regarded for the good reason that it is much better than this album… — tho it didn’t sell as well as Awake, only going single-platinum — but ’cause o’ that it is less funny & memetic. In truth, there is 1 song in particular I want to talk ’bout & it is on Awake, not Comatose.

1. Hero

You have no idea how disappointed I was when I read the Genius lyrics & saw the line “I’m not superhuman” where I always distinctly heard sung, “I’m not superheroman”, which is a far funnier, & therefore better lyric. As you can expect, this song’s lyrics are generic — tho here they fit a bit better, given its evocation o’ silver-age-style superhero comics, which also oft spoke in clichés. If anything, I wish this went the full way & actually used lines from comics, like, “With great power there must also come great responsibility”, from Spider-Man or, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”, from Marxman.

Since Skillet is considered a Christian Rock band, his savior could be interpreted to be Jesus Christ. However, since there is no direct reference to His name, the titular “hero” could refer to anyone that’s willing and able to save him and this world from self-destruction.

Genius annotation

Obviously this song is ’bout Bibleman.

As for the song itself, it is standard Skillet, with plenty o’ bombastic strings & singing, tho the backup singing by Jen Ledger… exists, I guess. It’s mildly catchy, tho not quite on the same level as their big hits from Comatose.

Grade: B

2. Monster

This is the whole reason I’m writing ’bout this band, so enjoy it before we have to waste time on 10 generic songs afterward.

& that reason is the end o’ the bridge, where the oft-repeated line, “I feel like a monster”, is sung in a Frankenstein’s-monster-like growl & it is the most amazing thing.

Outside o’ that, this song is a clear ripoff o’ Three Days Grace’s “Animal I’ve Become”, which came out ’bout 3 years before this, but obviously not as good. That’s not e’en close to Three Days Grace’s best song, or the best song off its album, One-X, but, spoiler, this is the best song, musically a’least, on this album, so that lets you know how these 2 albums compare. Still, I’m savoring that Three Days Grace lite sound as long as I can, ’cause I know it’s going to go downhill from here.

Grade: A

3. Don’t Wake Me

LOL that they made a Skillet AMV using footage from Elfen Lied, given all the fan service in that anime ( so I’ve read: the only fan service that gets me off are news outlets jerking themselves off ). Cooper may not be fucking with that wet-ass pussy, but Skillet’s fans sure are fucking with that anime-ass pussy.

Speaking o’ going downhill from here… ¿What is this Nickelback-ass shit? You dare to follow the amazing “Monster” with this fucking slush. “Don’t wake me” is right: sleeping is better than listening to this. The chorus legit sounds like Nickelback’s “Savin’ Me”, in the chorus where Chad Kroeger-brand sings, “& sing it for me, sing it for me”. ¡Go back to ripping off Three Days Grace!

No, ¡wait! I’m thinking o’ the chorus o’ Nickelback’s, “Far Away”, where he sings, “I love you, I loved you all along…”. That was the song.

Grade: F

4. Awake and Alive

Ah, there’s that Three Days Grace lite I was looking for.

Actually, I kind o’ wish this song sucked as hard as the last song, as while I much prefer listening to this mildly nice & catchy song, there’s nothing interesting to write. I do kind o’ find the “¡waking up, waking up!” part @ the beginning o’ the bridge funny, with the sing-song way it’s sung that makes it sound like the singer is singing to a child.

¿What kind o’ title is “Awake & Alive”? Obviously you’re alive if you’re awake: dead people can’t be woke, which is why Republicans love dead people so much.

Grade: B

5. One Day Too Late

God, this chorus sounds like it belongs on a kid’s show. I’m certainly not in the mood for hearing a song ’bout making the best o’ my time when I’m writing ’bout a fucking Skillet album — masturbating all day like Jon Arbuckle sounds downright productive in comparison.

¿& does e’ery verse need to start with an ad for Tiktok? ¿Hath this devout band not read the 11th commandment, “Thou shalt not be a fuckin’ sellout”?

I shouldn’t need to tell you that the jingly guitarwork & squeaky singing are intolerable. I don’t e’en know what this is ripping off, but I dread to hear it.

Grade: F

6. It’s Not Me, It’s You

O’ all the Three Days Grace songs, this is the most Three Days Grace, from riffs @ the beginning, the way the singing builds, & the shouts o’ “¡You!” @ the end, which is just like the shouts o’ “¡Home!” in Three Days Grace’s, um, “Home”. Obviously, it’s not as good: the music is too clean & o’erprocessed ( e’en compared to Three Days Grace, who are not exactly Velvet Underground ) & the singing sounds weaker & mo’ weaselly.

But lyrically this is on the same level, if not better, & is, unironically, the best-written song I’ve e’er heard from this band. O’ all the breakup songs I’ve heard, — & given all the angsty nu-metal & post-grunge I’ve listened to in my teens, that’s a lot — I don’t think I’ve e’er heard a song that twists the mealy-mouthed, “It’s not you, it’s me” cliché into this bitter invective, but it’s great — & especially coming after all the lame-ass Sunday-school songs before, such a bitter song starting with the line, “Let’s get this story straight: you were poison”, like the singer is sick o’ this bullshit already, is heaven to my ears. Hell yeah. More o’ this, please.

Grade: S

7. Should’ve When You Could’ve

Sigh. It seems I have to resign myself to getting a shitty song e’ery other song, like Skillet was thinking, “All right, we can’t spoil them: they’re too happy, so let’s give ’em shit now”. In contrast to the iconic, “It’s Not Me, It’s You”, which is a clever title for a song, “Should’ve When You Could’ve” is the corniest shit e’er, & the sassy way the singer sings, “better luck next time, girl”, makes me want to die. & the music is so cheese, it e’en ends with the cliché noodly boops so many pop-rock songs end with & has millennial woahs in the chorus, e’en tho nu-metal is far too early for millennial woahs.

Grade: F

8. Believe

It says something when I’m grateful they’ve gone back to sounding like Nickelback. Actually, this country-sounding song is hilarious, with its dime-store twanging notes & the way the singer sings, “I can’t fill the emptiness inside since you’ve been gone”. ¡Move o’er, Johnny Cash! Also: the smarmy way the singer sings, “I know I said things that I didn’t mean” in the bridge.

Speaking o’ the bridge, I love the guitar solo @ its beginning, which starts with standard Skillet strings, & then melts into those dime-store country guitar twanging, which devolves into rapid fire notes that sound like they’re being played on a plastic Guitar Hero guitar.

That being said, I unironically like the end to the chorus, with its bombastic, “you’re all that I need / just tell me that you still believe”, as generic as the lyrics are, especially @ the very end.

Grade: A

9. Forgiven

O, now we’re aping Evanescence, with those opening notes that sound very similar to the iconic opening to “Bring Me To Life”. Too bad the singing is nowhere near as catchy. In fact, it’s so monotone, & yet sung with such intensity, that it’s annoying. Same goes for the “ho-woah-woah”s @ the beginning o’ the bridge.

& the lyrics fall into the same Cartmen syndrome where I can’t tell if this is ’bout God or someone they want to fuck — or both. It doesn’t help when you have lines like this:

I get down on my knees
feel your love wash over me

Like, come on, they had to know. I don’t care if you’re Todd Fucking Flanders ( weird how Ned would give his son such an unholy middle name ), if you read these lines, your 1st thought is wishing for God to shower the singer with coconut cream pies.

10. Sometimes

( Note: ’twas a statistical inevitability that 1 o’ the AMVs I randomly chose for 1 o’ these songs would end up having an upskirt in its thumbnail ).

¿How could the band who made “Comatose” make a song so boring. I can’t emphasize how bland the chorus is, both in lyricism & its failure to form an interesting melody. I guess this song has a somewhat interesting guitar sol — No, fuck it. It’s not interesting. Nothing ’bout this song is — woah. ¿What the fuck are those beeps @ the end. ¿Why the fuck isn’t that the song?

Grade: D

11. Never Surrender

“Na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na”… Zzzzzz… This album has 14 songs. Many albums had only 12. ¿They couldn’t afford to cut these obvious filler tracks out?

Grade: D

12. Lucy

The opening is literally just someone hitting 1 fucking note on a piano repeatedly. It’s so annoying.

Because I have a working brain — well, I do so far; we’ll see if this album finally breaks me — I assumed that these smaltzy lyrics were ’bout this singer’s fucking dog dying & was hoping it wasn’t ’bout an actual adult woman, as the lines, “now that it’s over / I just want to hold her” sound idiotic in that context ( well, they sound idiotic in any context, but e’en worse there ). But then I read Cooper’s explanation for this song’s meaning & remembered that Cooper doesn’t have a working brain, but has 1 that has been melted by too much exposure to Jesus’s warm rays:

Listen up while I tell you a story about a young girl and a young guy who found themselves in a hard situation. They didn’t know what to do when they found out that she was pregnant; they were young, they didn’t have any money, they were scared, they didn’t want to tell anybody, they didn’t know what to do, and the only option that they could see was to terminate the pregnancy. So that’s what they decided to do… they went to a clinic, they had the procedure done, and at first they felt relieved that all their problems had gone away. But then something happened that they did not expect, and then over the next few weeks, which turned into a few months, they began to feel an intense sadness… and a pain and an agony and a guilt that wouldn’t go away. They didn’t know what to do, so they finally went to see a counsellor [sic]; they said, ‘look – tell us what to do, we just don’t know,’ and the counsellor [sic] made a suggestion. The counsellor [sic] said, ‘here’s what you need to do – stop acting like you had a procedure, and act like you had a death in the family.’ So the couple went home and they made three decisions; number one, they decided to have a funeral service for the baby; number two, they bought a tiny little headstone; and the last decision to make was what to name the baby. After a couple weeks they finally decided they would call her… Lucy.

John Cooper (Quote from Genius)

I’ll give Cooper 1 thing: it’s creative — in that such a thing would only happen on an alien planet, not real life. I don’t know any counselors — e’en the misspelled ones with too many L’s — whose 1st inclination when trying to soothe a couple grappling with the trauma o’ abortion would add to that trauma by insisting to them that that abortion was a “death in the family”, which was not necessarily the idea they already had, much less inventing a bizarre ritual where they hold a funeral for this fetus, rather than, I dunno, just telling them, “It is common for people to feel guilt after something like this”, & maybe saying something ’bout moving on. Fun tip: the psychological community tends to not look highly on fixating on past mistakes or trauma, especially when it involves weird rituals, & in contrast to what Cooper thinks, most health professionals, in fact, do think o’ abortions as procedures, not “deaths in the family” — that’s why they perform them & don’t rub their hands afterward & twirl their moustache & say, “¡Now my kill count is e’en greater than Dr. ikillbabies23!”.

E’en worse, you only get to hear this fanciful story in this garbled recounting, not in the song itself, which is so vague I mistook it for being ’bout a dead dog. Yeah, there’s the line, “I’ve got to live with the choices I made”, which I now see as a wink-wink, nudge-nudge gainst “pro-choice” people, but without this context could just refer to the dumbass singer accidentally leaving chocolate out that the dog ate. ¿Was Cooper trying to hide this song’s true meaning for fear o’ alienating his audience till he felt it had become accepted ’nough to reveal its true dark meaning, or is he just a bad lyricist? Considering P.O.D. made a song called “Abortion Is Murder” & nobody gave a shit ’cause nobody gives a shit ’bout ✝-rock, I’m going to guess the form — hold, on, ¿what’s the 1st line o’ that P.O.D. song?

you are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge

Bitch, ¿you’re blasphemous ’nough to sample the iconic opening o’ Straight Outta Compton in vain for your lame-ass ✝-rap song?

Grade: D

13. Dead Inside

You have no idea how excited I was when the previous song ended on Spotify YouTube Music & I found myself suddenly listening to “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” by Panic! At the Disco. { ¡There are only 12 songs on this album? ¡I’m free! }. But I saw those other tracks on Genius & forced myself to check out the “deluxe” edition, so we’re not free to listen to better music just yet. You could e’en say I feel dead inside.

As trite as it is to say, the best way to describe this song is, “¿What if someone AI-generated a Skillet song?”. It sounds distinctly Skilletlike: it’s got those blasting strings & bombastic choruses, but it lacks the interesting melody twists that make their better songs listenable.

Cooper is begging God to save him from his severe depression.

Genius annotation

& I am begging God to save me from this album.

Grade: D

14. Would It Matter

No, this song will ne’er matter, which is why it wasn’t included on an album that had standards low ’nough to include “Sometimes”.

This song is an alternative metal ballad by Skillet. It is a bonus track from “Awake”. This track has never been performed live. The basic context is about a person who no one cares about and hence wants to leave this world.

Genius annotation

E’en the author o’ this annotation doesn’t think this song matters. This is the most clinical description o’ a song. @ this point “sonic material” is a mo’ fitting term than “song”.

Despite this song not mattering, I was still able to find an AMV for this song, ’cause it is against the law for there to exist a Skillet song without an AMV.

Grade: Doesn’t Matter

15. Monster (Alternate Radio Version)

This is the “Wicked Monster” ( unlike Thousand Foot Krutch, not in the good way ): much as the “Wicked Bible” corrupted the LORD’s words by replacing their demand not to commit adultery with the command to commit adultery, the “Wicked Monster” replaces the aforementioned memetically amazing line, “I feel like a monster”, in a monster-growl voice with 1 that sounds like the normal singing used thruout the choruses — apparently for the radio, presumably ’cause square executives didn’t think ordinary listeners could handle such memetic cheese. ¡Cowards! Thus I have not included a AMV, tho I’m sure I could’ve found 1 with this version, as nobody should listen to this abomination.

Grade: 👹

I know what you’re thinking: “Yawn, here we get to hear some hilarious memes ’bout being down with the sickness ¡OOO-WAH-AH-AH-AH!”. Well, I’m sorry to inform you that we will not be looking @ their 2000 debut, The Sickness, with such certified hood classics as “Droppin’ Plates” & the 1, the only, “Down with the Sickness” — a’least not now. No, we will be looking @ their much less funny & memetic 2002 sophomore “Believe”, an album heavily influenced by the death o’ lead singer David Draiman’s Orthodox Jewish father, with whom he had become estranged, & thus has heavy religious themes ( tho much, much less, um, sunday-school-like as Thousand Foot Krutch’s magnum opus we looked @ previously ) & an album that had largely become forgotten, I remember, e’en during part o’ the height o’ their popularity, when releasing their 3rd & 4th albums. This isn’t that uncommon in nu-metal: nobody remembers Papa Roach’s Lovehatetragedy, either. As early as 2002 many bands associated with nu-metal were already starting to realize ’twas a goofy fad & were trying to sneak out into mo’ respectable genres. If I actually took seriously “nu-metal” as a specific genre & didn’t just use it as “metal from the noughties”, which apparently includes Nickelback, for my own conveniences, I wouldn’t include this album.

¿Why did I choose this album, which is their least funny & memetic, & also the least representation o’ their sound? I promise it is not due to certain recent events that have reignited last October ( ¡I said no politics in October, world! ) & which shall go unnamed for now. I would actually say the answer is in the question: ¿wouldn’t a very unfunny album that sounds significantly different from their normal styles ( I would say their 3rd & 4th album have noticeable differences in style & they wouldn’t really solidify their style till their 4th album ) be very interesting to look @? ¿No? Well, tough shit, ’cause that’s what we’re doing. I’m driving the car round here.

1. Prayer

This was the 1st single on this album & very, very rarely played on the radio — a’least after their 3rd album came out & this song was no longer fresh.

I always assumed this song was ’bout Draiman’s father dying, with lines like, “another life that I’ve taken from you / a gift to add onto your pain and suffering”, but the elders o’ Genius strangely make no mention o’ this well-known background fact. Instead, they emphasize it being inspired by the Book of Job:

The theme in the song is inspired by the book of Job, in which God allows for Satan to test Job’s piety with multitudes of different curses. Instead of turning away from God, Job however is strengthened in his religious fervor, he refuses to turn away from God no matter what the trials.

&, yeah, a Biblically-inspired work ’bout one’s strained feelings ’bout God are inevitably going to reference that big Bible story ’bout humanity’s strained relations with God ( tho if one wanted to be exotic — or emo — one could reference “Ecclesiastes” ). Howe’er the way Genius says it makes it sound like a ✝-rock Sunday-school lesson, whereas if you listen to the lyrics, there is a clear sarcastic tone to it — which, to be fair, is mo’ in line with the real Job rather than the way Sunday schools have sanitized him. Like Job, Draiman sounds less “strengthened in his religious fervor”, as Christians interpret the story, &, mo’ in line with Jewish sentiments, resigned. Thus, if I may be so blasphemous, I must politely disagree with Genius’s interpretation. Also, Christians totally get the Book of Job wrong, as well as most o’ the ol’ testament — seriously, Isaiah was talking ’bout his wife, not some virgin giving birth.

Genius also claims that in the music video “the band members go through a modern interpretation of Job’s trials”. Unfortunately, the YouTube link they provide is gone now, but if you watch the music video I provide ’bove, you won’t really see much o’ Job’s trials, ’less you think Job seeing homeless men & prostitutes were his trials ( spoiler: they weren’t ). I certainly don’t remember any scene in Job where he & his useless idiot ”friends” who just shit-talk him thruout the story rock out o’er urban rubble. Admittedly, the story might’ve been improved if it did, but they didn’t have the technology back then.

Honestly, I think this album had better choices for a single, specially the 1st. I do like the melodic bridge & choruses ( well, ’cept when Draiman interrupts his soulful pleading with an abrupt, “¡ROCK!” ), & I do like the crunchy texture o’ the guitar riffs, which I’d know how to describe if I knew anything ’bout music; but the actual guitar composition feels plain, as do the verses.

Grade: B

2. Liberate

“Liberate” is a song about having an open mind, to liberate ones mind from conflict based on blind hatred and different beliefs. It’s calling for the day that every major religion has foretold; the coming of the messiah and the end of days.

Holy shit, these Genius annotations are by someone who thinks Disturbed is a Christian rock band. I ne’er thought Disturbed lyrics would be o’er the head o’ Genius, but that is the world we live in. As anyone who knows any religion but Christianity knows, “the coming of the messiah and the end of days” is most definitely not a part o’ e’ery major religion. This annotation misses the sarcasm ’hind the line “waiting for your modern messiah”. This song was released a year after 9/11 & when war was being stoked by the religious right with heavy Islamophobic sentiments. The meaning ’hind the sick reference to Isaiah in the bridge “nation shall not raise sword gainst nation / & they shall not learn war anymore” could not be clearer. It is, in fact, an expression o’ an ol’ tradition o’ religious criticism: pointing out hypocrisy.

This song, the 2nd single & the 1 that was played way more oft, is the most nu-metal-sounding on this album, & the only time Draiman does his patented scatsinging. Since Draiman clearly was mo’ concerned with having words that fit well with the meter than the profoundest words, the verses & pre-choruses ( which are just repeated the 2nd time ) are rather vague & basic… But damn are they catchy & fun to sing ’long to — & let’s face it: in music, that’s what matters most. This song is very cheesy, specially with the liberal uses o’ “motherfucker” in the verses contrasted gainst the sorrowful pleading chorus & the dignified scripture verse in the bridge, but that kind o’ weird mixture is what I like most o’ nu-metal. Certified nu-metal expert J. J. W. Mezun proclaims this to be a banger. Amen.

Grade: A

3. Awaken

This is, in my opinion, the most underrated Disturbed song o’ all time. I don’t mean due to memes or any extreme cheesiness ( tho the parrotlike “¡ACK!”s & “SHUAH!”s strewn thru the chorus would be a candidate if Draiman didn’t make much weirder sounds on other songs, as well as the repeated line ’talking ’bout how the narrator wants to “play with your evil side” 😉 ). I just think this is his best singing with the most range, alternating ’tween the menacingly quiet & tepid verses & angry choruses, specially the bridge, which goes e’en further with the menacing quietude. I e’en like the very noisy guitarwork, which I’m usually not crazy ’bout from Disturbed, specially the way it transitions the 1st chorus & the 1st verses & the stringlike sound o’ the guitar & baseline under the bridge.

Genius clearly doesn’t agree with me, as they ain’t said shit ’bout this song. To be honest, I have no idea what this song is ’bout & ne’er felt burdened by that lack o’ knowledge. I think I always assumed ’twas ’bout the temptation o’ sin, which, now that I think ’bout it, is what later songs on this album will be ’bout, too.

Grade: S

4. Believe

This feels like a better “Prayer”, laying on e’en thicker the cynicism on religious belief, specially with the quiet, sing-songy verses ( matched with a sing-songy main riff that goes DUM-DUM, DUH DUM-DUM, DUM-DUM, DUH DUM-DUM ), only to build-up to louder chants for a chorus telling the reader that their beliefs are useless, they’re still rotten, sinful creatures, only to become an intense thumping rhythm during the bridge, only to end with the very soft line, “burn your lie”.

Genius has this to say ’bout this song:

“Believe when you lie, teaching the art of deception. It is the teacher speaking to the student. The theologians continuing their legacy of lies. For the perpetuation of such false beliefs, penance cannot absolve your sin.”
http://youtu.be/EjaMPAo5UwE

I don’t know if this is a quote from Draiman explaining the song’s meaning or the anonymous author wanted to rant their sick philosophical beliefs & decided the annotation for a Disturbed song was the best place. Sadly, the YouTube link is as lost as the Annals o’ Solomon. ( The Anals o’ Solomon, howe’er, can still be found on RedTube ).

Grade: A

5. Remember

When I 1st heard this album, I wasn’t in love with this song, but my opinion on this song has probably risen mo’ than any other song on this album. While the singing lacks the variety that “Awaken” has, it is, specially the choruses, hands-down Draiman’s best singing. The music, while certainly not terrible, is kind o’ basic, tho.

The music video, which I’d ne’er seen — probably ’cause MTV was probably playing their 100th reality TV show @ the time instead — doesn’t do the drama o’ the song justice, howe’er, as it seems to be the band jamming out while watching Phantom of the Opera porn — probably with a name like “Phantom of the Cock” or “Phallus of the Opera”.

Grade: A

6. Intoxication

This song’s a fine ’nough banger, & I like how the fast-paced, shouting verses make way for the erratic pre-chorus rhythm, both o’ which fit well for a song ’bout intoxication, & then the slower, mo’ soulful chorus as the singer laments said intoxication. I do think the verses could’ve been mo’ fast-paced. I mean, “Liberate” was mo’ fast-paced, & that was just ’bout liberating your mind, man, which, I guess, some people would say is a better drug. ( “¡you’re better than drugs!”. ¡No! ¡We’re not s’posed to talk ’bout Skillet yet! ).

Grade: B

7. Rise

I’ve ne’er been crazy ’bout this song. It’s a bit schmaltzy. I mean, the verses & main chorus with its generic lyrics telling you to rise up ( gamers ) in such an “inspiring” voice is the only time this album begins to sound like ✝-rock. If it sounded less generic, I’d buy it. & while it doesn’t sound bad, I don’t know how I feel ’bout the cheesy line in the pre-chorus, “¿do you really think i covet like you do?”. I mean, ¿maybe? You are the guy who sang “Meaning of Life”’s “give in, give in, decide”.

That said I do like the downtuned guitars in the post-chorus where he asks, “¿am I precious to you now?” & the very quiet quaking sounds after the 2nd post-chorus. & believe it or not, I don’t mind the ending with the cheesy lyrics o’ “pure emotion falling from my eyes”, which a’least don’t sound smug like the “covet like you do” line, but its mood is ruined by the return o’ the generic chorus. ’Gain, if the chrous were really good, I’d appreciate it, but there are much better songs that do what this song does.

Grade: C

8. Mistress

I’m not the biggest fan o’ Disturbed’s instrumentation, but I will say that I think this song’s opening riffs are ’mong their best. In contrast, I’m not wild ’bout Draiman’s singing here, which is way too high-pitched.

I’m not sure what this song has to do with this album’s general theme o’ spiritual inner conflict, & like many o’ the nu-metal bands we’ve looked @, the lyrics seem hopelessly vague & abstract:

to stand on the edge of the knife
cutting through the nightmare from which
I just cannot awaken
stand on the edge of the night
living inside a moment
from which I will never awaken

That’s deep, bro.

fallen again for another
mistress of burden to idolize
hoping that 1 of them will decide
to let me in

look at what you’ve done to me
you’ve become my enemy
poisoning the world for me

This is disturbingly starting to sound like an incel anthem. Let’s move on.

Grade: B

9. Breathe

Ne’er been a big fan o’ this song, either, from the weird DUH-DUH-DUH DUH-DUH-DUH squeaky guitar riffs, bizarrely mixed with the stilted, slow singing, specially since the lyrics are specially vague & uninspired here, with generic lines ’bout “releasing your life” repeated in the verses, choruses, & e’en the bridge. It’s very repetitive, & without the fun o’ “Liberate”’s internal-rhyme-filled scatting.

& then you have the chorus with its awkward “DAMNS” that sound like Shadow the Hedgehog is singing this song:

you’ll never leave alive
now, do you think you’re too DAMN good
for the killing kind

This just reminds me o’ that Nickelback song, “Feeling Too Damn Good”, or whate’er ’twas called. I’m pretty certain only dads use the phrase “damn good”; the hip kids o’ today say, “pibbfizzing”. If Mr. John Disturbed had said that, this song would be good.

Grade: C

10. Bound

Genius returns to annotating to tell us this is a breakup song, which doesn’t fit with this album’s otherwise mo’ serious religious themes, & makes the mo’ somber music & singing that are still on this song seem o’erwrought. I mean, this song starts by shouting, “¡darkness cover me!”. & yet the lyrics don’t sound anywhere near upset, but mo’ just annoyed:

o, I’m not ready to die, girl
because of what you don’t tell me
i’m not willing to compromise the man I want to be

think you’re a little bit closer
to changing me
you’re never winning me over
you’re wasting time

Honestly, e’erything ’bout this song — the guitar riffs & drums, the singing, the lyrics — sound like generic filler. The tempo & tone o’ singing changes rapidly & jerkily, but not in a way that’s interesting. ¿What is the tone o’ this song s’posed to be? It sounds like the singer’s s’posed to be going thru a comic mental breakdown, specially when he shouts, “¡ready!” & “¡darkness cover me!” out o’ nowhere.

Grade: D

11. Devour

Mo’ squeaky guitarwork. Still, the menacingly slow verses & melodious chrous are better than the past few songs, tho not as good as songs in the 1st half o’ this album. Plus, it’s funny to imagine Draiman singing ’bout wanting to eat the listener, especially with how serious the singing is. This song should’ve gotten a music video instead o’ those other songs.

Grade: C

12. Darkness

You would think Disturbed doing an acoustic ballad would be a terrible idea, — certainly their infamous cover o’ “The Sound of Silence” would lead one to expect such — but I actually think this was well-done & makes a perfect album ender. The lyrics feel mo’ broad than generic, which is helped by the slowness o’ this song providing few words. & the singing has just ’nough variation in tone to keep it from sounding monotonous, which is the common flaw o’ boring slow songs.

If anything, it’s too bad this song is preceded by all the weak songs that come before it. Hearing Draiman sing ’bout wanting to eat the listener leading directly to this is quite a whiplash.

Grade: A

All right, next month I’ll review an actually funny album.

All right, all you sinners: get out your angel horns &, as their biggest song goes, get ready to ¡MOOOVE! & step into the circle & shake like green dew ( I don’t care if the official lyrics say “like we do”: as a kid I heard “green dew”, & nobody will change my mind on this subject. The 1st Council o’ Nicaea has made their decision ).

1. Phenomenon

This song’s lyrics are less cringe & mo’ miracle-spherical word-taco rap that any 5th-tier rapper could spit & I wouldn’t spit out my drink. Like a lot o’ Thousand Foot Krutch songs, there’s a lot o’ vague incitements to dance with only vague references to faith: “raise up the lighters, praise to the righteous”. ¿Isn’t raising your lighter usually something you do for slow, moving songs, not bops? If you’re following the advice o’ a later line to “¡roll! open your soul, maybe lose control” then you’re liable to accidentally fling your lighter or bump it into someone & possible start a fire. Awfully irresponsible for this godly band to inspire pyromania.

Other lines are weirder:

don’t let these spiders crawl up beside us
they want to bite us, inject the virus

¿What does Thousand Foot Krutch have gainst spiders? The only place where they’re mentioned in The Bible is the book o’ Job, 1 o’ the world’s earliest emo songs, where he just calls their webs useless. It wasn’t spiders who tasted o’ the wicked fruit o’ knowledge. Spiders are innocent & will all be written in the book o’ the saved when the floods come once mo’.

Mo’ puzzling are these lines from the bridge:

i’m not invisible like you
next time things get a little messed up

¿Who’s “you”? ¿Me? I’m not invisible. ¿Why does Thousand Foot Krutch ( I’m gonna get sick o’ typing that name ) assume their audience is invisible? They don’t learn “Vanish” till they get the Phantom magicite from the Magitek Research Facility.

This is mo’ absurd when you consider the lines that come just before:

tired of being ordinary
don’t care if there’s people staring

I mean, if your audience is invisible, they should definitely not care if people are staring. ¿Staring @ what? ¿People dancing? That’s what people do in the concerts this song was clearly aimed @. ¿What idiots would be gawking @ people dancing @ a rock concert?

Genius’s annotation for this album includes this line:

The song is about being bold and confident in your faith, and getting down to the beat of this Christian song.

This was either written by an middle-aged youth pastor or someone making fun o’ people who listen to this band. I refuse to believe that e’en 80% o’ the people who listen to this band unironically would use the phrase “getting down to the beat of this Christian song”.

Vague lyrics aside, I have to admit that this song is catchy, tho not nearly as much as “Move”, which, now that I think ’bout it, is clearly just them doing this song ’gain, with its vague lyrics exhorting its listeners to dance. For 1, this song’s actual music, its guitar riffs, bass riffs, & drumbeats, are generic, whereas “Move” had cool high-pitched noodly notes.

Grade: B

2. Step To Me

See, now this song’ got a pretty cool bassline. Tho I don’t know how I feel ’bout the weird muffled “dow-now-dow-now” riffs that come up e’ery now & then.

& like “Phenomenon”, this song has a catchy chorus with lyrics that are hopelessly vague.

Actually, this song’s chorus falls right into Cartmanesque love songs for Jesus territory, asking someone to “hold me tight in your arms tonight” while later telling this addressee “you’re my answer to the question why”.

This becomes e’en mo’ confusing when we look @ the verses, which take a much different tone:

i’m sick of letting you control
me & all the places that i go
i’m never giving in to you again
take, take another look @ me
take another look
& tell me what you see
all of these cats tryin’ to get under my skin
but they can’t step over me

Now the person he’s talking to ( ¿the same person? ) is an antagonistic figure whose not going to step to them, bro. Indeed, near the end o’ the song the singer asserts, “but you can’t hold me”, which is the exact opposite o’ what he was requesting in the chorus. Either the chorus & verses are aimed @ different people & the lyricist didn’t bother to connect them or the singer in this song is a tsundere.

Deep within all these vague words o’ “I love you” & “No, you cats ain’t controllin’ me, son” is this weird line:

couldn’t see it ’til I multiplied you

These lyrics are building a consistent case that Thousand Foot Krutch are engaging in witchcraft & must be burned @ the stake ( that song, which is a hard S-grade, is a treat to you, the reader, for being good ).

Let’s see if Genius can elucidate these quandaries:

“Step To Me” depicts TFK frontman Trevor Mcnevan’s battle in his beliefs between accepting and allowing God to be in control of his life, and being in denial and frustrated by God.

So it is decreed canon by the priests o’ song meanings: this song is ’bout wanting to hate-fuck God. Real rad o’ Thousand Foot Krutch to cover a Nine Inch Nails song.

Grade: B

3. Last Words

When I was young I always thought this song was just a less-good “Jumper” by Third Eye Blind. Howe’er, thanks to Genius’s annotation & rereading the lyrics, I have discovered that rather than this song being an uplifting song from a nonsuicidal person toward somebody considering suicide, it is, in fact, ’bout the dead person apologizing for dying:

i’m sorry i left you
i’m living in a world of regret
don’t cry if you can hear me
i never meant to hurt you dearly
i’m so wrong sincerely
don’t stop
take life seriously

Now, Genius only says that this person “probably killed themself”, &, indeed, the lyrics are vague ’nough that it could just be someone dead regretting how useless their life was sitting round just masturbating all day before dying o’ diabetes ’cause they ate nothing but McDonalds — or how sinful was their life sitting round just masturbating all day before dying o’ diabetes ’cause they ate nothing but McDonalds. That’s a good thing for TFK, as writing a song depicting a suicidal person as the asshole is, ironically, an assholish move in itself. Actually, ’less this person was a real asshole in life ( ’gain, the lyrics are so vague that we get no information beyond “there’s so much I’ve done wrong” & mumblings ’bout “all the times I’ve lied and hurt you”, which could be referring to anything from Walter White running a secret meth business to secretly masturbating to porn all day in shame ’hind their loved one’s back ), depicting the dead person as an asshole for being dead is still an assholish move.

Anyway, the singer then goes on to exhort the listener — you — to treasure life & all its sunsets & to “thank God in the morning for another day” — preferably before or after you start your morning jerk-off session, as God doesn’t want to talk to you while you’re doing that kind o’ thing, or while you’re using the bathroom, by the way, you weirdo.

But halfway thru the 2nd verse, the advice gets confusing:

those people
please love them
don’t hate them
we’re not above them
you can have everything but have nothing
listen I’ve got to tell you something

¿Who are “those people”? ¿People who die? ¿Suicidal people? ¿Sinners? I’m listening, but you’re not telling me anything @ all.

Unfortunately, ’cause o’ this, this song didn’t work for me, as I still just ended up wasting the rest o’ my day masturbating, & now I still haven’t caught up on my ¡Mega Microstories! backlog. Worse yet: ¡I forgot to thank God this morning for creating ’nother day! ¡How rude! ( They make 1 e’ery day: @ a certain point it stops becoming impressive & starts becoming rote ).

The chorus is decently catchy, but the singer’s voice gets real squeaky & annoying in this song. Also, the riffs, baselines, & drums just feel like random sputtering, specially @ the beginning.

Grade: D

4. This Is A Call

This is a hokey-ass ballad — & considering how white this band’s “hard” songs are, you can only imagine how supernova this shit is. I want to specially emphasize the chorus melody ,— what has, so far, been the best part o’ these songs — which is some square-dance “dum de dum de dum dum, dum de dum de dum dum” shit. I hate it.

The lyrics are the cheesiest shit e’er, including the vital inclusion o’ the mother with cancer. Best o’ all, the singer follows up this revelation with the rhyme, “& her friends don’t understand her”.

The 2nd verse is much less dramatic, being mostly ’bout some guy whose useless & has a boring life & probably spends all day masturbating. So that verse is ’bout Jon Arbuckle.

These are my favorite lines in this song:

take me to a place where nothing’s wrong &
thanks for coming, shut the door

Also:

well if you’re real then save me Jesus

Jesus: <I have some bad news for you…>.

Grade: S & F

5. Rawkfist

WARNING: YOU ARE ’BOUT TO ENCOUNTER A POTENTIALLY LETHAL DOSE O’ CRINGE. PEOPLE WITH LOW TOLERANCE FOR CRINGE SHOULD AVOID WATCHING OR LISTENING TO THE FOLLOWING YOUTUBE VIDEO. IF YOU START TO FEEL YOUR SOUL LEAVE YOUR BODY FROM CRINGE O’ERDOSE, STOP WATCHING OR LISTENING TO THIS VIDEO IMMEDIATELY & VISIT YOUR DOCTOR TO TEST FOR CRINGESCARS.

1st, ¿what the hell is that haircut that the guitarist has in this music video? Also, I love how @ the end o’ the music video — after the singer drops his final rawkfist — they all start glowing. Presumably God has looked down @ their wicked ( ¡but in a good way! ) tune & has prematurely given them eternal life so he can listen to their rad beats for eternity.

¿What else is there for me to say ’bout this song? As soon as you are hit with those immortal words screamed out loud —

¡throw up your rawkfist!
¡if you’re feelin’ it when I drop this!

— you know you’re in for the ultimate o’ nu-metal cheese.

If you don’t believe me when I tell you that Thousand Foot Krutch puts Kendrick to shame, let me show you these sharp lyrics:

show ’em how we slow this spot, let ‘s make it hot
let’s shock ’em with the bodyrock ’til the party stops
it’s time to take it up a notch & keep it locked
for all the headbangers in the parking lot
here we come if you’re ready or not
no time to talk ’cause we on the clock
bringin’ that ¡uhh! ¡uhh! to your block
let me show ya where we’re comin’ from, it don’t stop

Um, ¿what is this “¡uhh! ¡uhh!” they are bringing to my block? Perhaps they should keep that to themselves privately.

The chorus is, bizarrely, much calmer ’bout all it took to both make & break this amazing music. For the LORD said to Adam, “For dust thou art, & unto dust shalt thou return”; & so the LORD’s favorite rock band that their grandmother will let them listen to shalt say to their song, “For cheese thou art, & unto cheese shalt thou return”. Amen.

Let’s see what chapter 5 o’ the book o’ Genius says o’ this song:

A standout single from Thousand Foot Krutch’s first album with Tooth & Nail Records.

I mean, yeah, it definitely stands out.

Rawkfist is a fan favorite track, reaching #28 on Billboard’s U.S. mainstream rock charts in 2004.

I refuse to believe that hardcore Thousand Foot Krutch fans aren’t as hipster as the rest & aren’t saying shit like, “Um, their early work before they went mainstream was their true best work”. I mean, I read someone on TV Tropes claim that fucking Skillet apparently soured when they started touring with Papa Roach & Three Days Grace. Imagine having the delusion that Skillet is too good to tour with Papa Roach & Three Days Grace. Yeah, they totally belong next to Tame Impala & King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard.

ESPN’s Sports Center used it for their Ultimate Highlight showcases during the program. The TV Series Smallville used it in the episode “Velocity” in season 3.

The idea o’ this song being used in these 2 places amused me so much that I had to look them up. I couldn’t find the 1st, but luckily I found the scene from Smallville:

Seeing this scene with youngster Superman locked in baby Lex Luthor’s devious trap where he’s poisoned with kryotonite ignited by race cars while this song plays is the very definition o’ heaven described in Dante Alghieri’s divine comedy — ’cause that’s what it is, comedy antikryptonite.

Also notable for being one of the few tracks off of Phenomenon that showcased their rap/hip-hop influences from their debut studio album “Set it Off.”

¿What? All o’ these songs so far ’cept the ballad have had rapped verses. ¿Did the person who wrote this not listen to the rest o’ the album?

Grade: 🪨✊

6. Faith, Love, and Happiness

O, right… There’s mo’ than half this album left. Whoopie.

Actually, I think I can sympathize with these lyrics:

everyone is up in my face
need to get outta this place
it’s hard to see with you in front of my face
just another perfect day
acting like they wanna talk to me
so fake
yet so friendly
my eyes can see even the back of me
¿won’t you just let me be?

O, wait, ne’ermind:

all I want is faith, love & happiness

Speak for yourself: I don’t want that shit.

I do like how they sneak in 1 mo’ misanthropic line just after that:

every time one runs away another one’s returning

You said, it, brother. Amen.

Hey, wait… ¿What’s this?

every which way I turn I’ve got the option of a million choices
every single word I say is judged by a million critics
every which way you turn you got the sound of a million voices
every single move you make is torn by a million cynics

Shit, they saw me comin’. ¡Turn the car around!

This is your 1st album anyone cared ’bout. Cracka, a million critics weren’t sayin’ shit ’bout you yet.

So spake Genius:

Generalizing the common issues and hardships that people face in this world, singer Trevor Mcnevan believes that in order to be content with our lives, we need a solid relationship with God.

Well, you can tell God — who I know was responsible for this being written, I know you’re there, God — I told them they need to give me some space, as I’m not emotionally ready for commitment right now.

Sonically, this song is fine. I kind o’ like the rhythm o’ the verses. Apparently TFK did, too, as they reuse it for the chorus. The music itself is just chugga-chugga rock riffs, tho.

Grade: C

7. I Climb

I fucking hate this stop-&-go melody all thruout the verses, pre-choruses, & choruses, not helped by the whining tone thruout the singing. There’s also an ugly airiness to how the instruments sound.

¿What does Genius have to say ’bout this song?, ’cause the lyrics are, like always, hopelessly vague:

Also likely a continuation of narration in the story from the previous tracks “Last Words” and “Faith, Love and Happiness,” this song is about how the individual(s) mentioned are struggling with their outlook on life, and how they are occasionally able to see past their problems and realize God’s love and care for them.

Ugh. ¿So it’s just a rehash o’ the previous song? I’m getting a sneaking suspicion that this band, like many mid-tier bands, had only a couple good songs & filled the rest with filler.

Grade: F

8. Quicken

This song is all o’er the place, specially the verses, which slow & speed up in erratic ways. Just listen to the 2nd verse. Sadly, none o’ it leads to anything catchy or interesting, & the lyrics are… what you expect.

Grade: D

9. New Design

Genius didn’t e’en bother to make an annotation for this song, presumably ’cause e’en the only fan who cared ’nough to write the earlier entries got bored & stopped listening by this point. Similarly, we don’t need to say anything ’bout this song.

Grade: 😴

10. Bounce

All right, we’re back to that rippity rapping:

it’s TFK
we rock the party
& keep the party jumpin’ in an old school way

¡Ha, ha, ha! “Old school”. Yeah, they’re rocking the party like Moses did in 1200 BC. ¡Real hiphop, honkey!

You know they slay like King David with lines like this:

play for a team that’s called “not to mess with”

O shit, I don’t mess with any team called “not to mess with”. ¡They be endin’ those sentences with prepositions, dawg!

& check out the scenario

You know, I was going to make fun o’ them for ripping off A Tribe Called Quest, but then realized I mixed up their lines “Check the rhime [sic]” & “¿What’s the scenario?”, so that hilarious joke doesn’t work. But, you know what, you readers have been so patient with these boring album-end filler songs that I think you deserve a treat in the form o’ an actually good rap song, so here you go:

Grade: ⚔️

11. Ordinary

This song is so lazy it just repeats the exact verse twice. The singer also doesn’t bother keeping any kind o’ coherent melody thruout this song, with a particularly boring chorus melody. I would make a joke ’bout this song being ordinary itself, but it’s actually a weird mix o’ weird, but not in an interesting way.

Genius also had nothing to say ’bout this song. In fact, spoiler, they have nothing mo’ to say ’bout the rest o’ this album, as e’en the hardcore TFK fan who was writing them fell off before this point. I may be the only person lame ’nough to go thru this whole album.

Grade: D

12. Break the Silence

¡The last song! ¡We’re almost free! ¡Thank you LORD up high!

This song sounds just like the previous few, with the exception o’ the Korn-like “om-ne-om-ne-om-ne-om” scatting in the bridge. The chorus melody isn’t bad… but it’s not good ’nough that I will e’er listen to this song ’gain.

Grade: C

It’s unfortunate that this album fell off so hard @ the end, as the 1st 6 songs offered so much potential. Such is the risk o’ me stupidly reviewing an entire album.

Yup, you knew ’twas coming — just like how Chad Kroeger’s cumming on his girlfriend’s dress, leaving white stains ( seriously, that’s a line in 1 o’ the songs we’ll be looking @ ). I need not introduce the 1, the only. Unlike Papa Roach or Breaking Benjamin, who are most forgotten outside the realm o’ SiIvaGunner rips ( & I still haven’t heard any Breaking Benjamin there, which needs to be remedied ), Nickelback is the most cliché punchline for “bad music” round. ¿So why am I covering them, when this series focuses on underrated gems? Well, I have 2 reasons, & they revolve round the album I’ll be looking into.

Your 1st expectation when seeing that I’ll be looking @ Nickelback is that the album I’ll be looking @ is All the Right Reasons, with such infamous meme songs as “If Everyone Cared”, a cheesy ballad ’bout how nobody will die if e’eryone cried & nobody lied & anyone tried; “Rockstar”; & the 1, the only, “Look @ this graph”:

I will not be looking @ this album: this is well-tread territory by this point. Nor will I be looking @ their 1st breakthru album in the US, “Silver-Side Up”, with its catchy breakout hit, “How You Remind Me”. But if you want, some guy on YouTube critiqued that album. ( Spoiler: he thinks it’s boring ).

No, the album I’ll be looking @ is “The Long Road”, which, according to memes, is the 1 e’eryone forgets, but is the 1 that introduced me to this band as a li’l kid, before I had heard o’ all the memes ’bout the band — in fact, before those memes e’en existed, as “All the Right Reasons” hadn’t come out yet — & while I was still blissfully ignorant o’ such things as music criticism. & as an innocent kid, my opinion o’ this album was… I thought ’twas all right. Honestly, when I 1st encountered the meme ’bout Nickelback being the worst band e’er, I was always bewildered, not ’cause I thought they were good, but ’cause I was surprised anyone could feel any passion for the band, e’en hatred. ( Also, I knew much worse bands that have been forgotten by this point, like Puddle of Mudd & Theory of a Dead Man ).

1. Flat On the Floor

As a kid I always skipped this 1. I’m not sure why: most people I’ve heard talk ’bout this song list it as 1 o’ their better songs, since it’s loud & fast-paced, clocking in only 2 minutes, with verses & choruses that last ’bout 10 seconds each.

Grade: C

2. Do This Anymore

This was always my favorite track, ’cause I always liked the spooky opening with the “Woooooo” with the squeaky noises ’hind it, backed with gradually rising trainlike chugs ( which is fitting, since the 1st line is talking ’bout being on a train ). Honestly, this song is full o’ weird noises that may be made with an actual guitar, but is probably made with a computer. That obviously puts this song on the same level as “Paranoid Android”.

Grade: B

3. Someday

This song, which I think was the big single ( I don’t think I e’er heard a song from “The Long Road” on the radio ), is sort o’ a meme in that it s’posedly sounds just like “How You Remind Me” & someone made a mash-up to “prove” it. Personally, I ne’er made the connection myself, & if mash-ups prove anything, then clearly Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me” & Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” are the same song.

I think I liked this song as a kid, but it hasn’t aged as well for me as “Do This Anymore”. I tended to be fine with Chad’s screechy voice, but e’en I kind o’ cringe when he sings, “Now that since we’re here anyyyyywayyyyy”. I also find the chorus to be way too bombastic with way too much jingling pop noise, with the twinkly notes & the weird extra voices that might just be Chad’s voice warped by computers in the background. It just sounds like fuzz.

I also find the line, “now the story’s played out like this, just like a paperback novel”, perplexing. ¿Why a paperback novel, & not a hardcover? I guess he means an airport novel: a cheap thriller, rather than literary fiction. But both literary & genre fiction come in both forms: e’ery copy o’ Ulysses I own ( & I own a’least 3, including the infamous Gabler version ) is a paperback, while I have hardcover collections o’ James Bond novels.

That being said, “I wish you’d unclench your fists and unpack your suitcase” isn’t a bad line…

Grade: D

4. Believe It Or Not

I like this song’s main riff, but the lyrics are repetitive fortune-cookie shit, repeating the phrase, “Believe it or not, [insert “hang in there” poster line]”. & I, in actual fact, don’t believe that e’eryone “believe [sic] in something above”, since I know atheists exist. It’s like a weaker “If Everyone Cared”, which a’least had the cheesy inspirational music to fit. This song’s grimy music doesn’t fit @ all.

But that’s OK, ’cause after the 2nd chorus, the riff suddenly drops, & we get some acoustic noodling that sounds both bland & incoherent while the singer continues the same refrains.

Grade: D

5. Feelin’ Way Too Damn Good

This song has stronger verses than the chorus: they have a kind o’ jazziness to them. Also, as cheap as it is, I like that weird bass note ’tween the 1st 2 verses. The chorus, meanwhile, is OK, with the only notable part being when Chad goes “¡OW!” @ the end like he’s orgasming.

Honestly, the best part o’ this song is the part where the attendant announces boarding for a flight to Los Angeles round the bridge.

Grade: C

6. Because Of You

I completely forgot this song existed, & I have a sneaking suspicion I will forgot it ’gain after I’m done with this article.

I guess the 1 thing o’ note is how perplexing the lyrics are. Most o’ it seems to be ’bout someone dying in the hospital, but then we get these lyrics:

now that you did this, you ask for forgiveness
doctor, ¿could you be my priest?
you say you’re mistaken, but look what you’ve taken
you laugh as you lie through your teeth

¿Is the singer implying that this person is killing themself just to spite the singer?

For the record, Genius currently has no annotations for any o’ these songs.

¿Is it me, or do the drums @ the beginning o’ this song sound like Lars Ulrich’s infamous trash can drums in St. Anger ( which I like, by the way — which goes to show how low my standards for music are )?

Grade: C

7. Figured You Out

O’ all the songs on this album, this is the biggest meme song, thanks to the big opening line, “I like the pants around your feet”, which spawned the brilliant DJ Cumberbund remix, “Pantsfeet”.

As a kid I always hated this song ’cause it’s gross, but now I kind o’ respect it a bit mo’ for it, specially with how detailed it is. For a band that’s notorious for being cheesy & boring, I don’t know a lot o’ boring bands who would write the line “I like the white stains on your dress” or talking ’bout freckles on his lover’s chest or dirt on his lover’s knees — tho, I ne’er understood why she has dirt on her knees. ¿Are they fucking outside on the grass?

The negging phrase “you’re my favorite disease” was copied by other buttrockers nobody remembers anymo’, like Rev Theory, but it’s possible Nickelback took the phrase from Saliva — tho they used it in a mo’ negative way — mo’ a toxic relationship than kinky sex… ¿I think? Honestly, that song’s chorus & verses don’t match @ all: he’s bragrapping the verses ’bout how he smokes a lot o’ weed & killin’ all the competition, but then sings ’bout how sad he is in the chorus & bridge.

Basically, what I’m saying is, this song is a worse Saliva song.

Actually, looking @ the rare Genius annotation for this song, this song may be ’bout what Saliva’s choruses are ’bout:

Chad Kroeger about the meaning of Figured You Out:

Sometimes you get into a little fling and you think you know the person, and the next thing you know, you’re dating a cokehead who’s interwoven into some underground drug world with Hell’s Angels and movie stars and models and you’re like, “What the @#%$ am I doing?

The song starts off like most relationships do; very physically oriented. And then you start discovering things about the person you’re with it’s like ‘’‘OK, I don’t like that about you, or that, or that……OK, now the only thing we have on common is we have great sex so there’s no point in us being together.

¿How the hell does this come from “I like the white stains on your dress”? ¿Is it sarcastic? The meaty, Fred-Flintstone way Chad says it doesn’t fit. ¿Maybe it’s like Stone Temple Pilot’s “Sex Type Thing” — a much, much better song — & is an ironic depiction o’ the kind o’ meatheat who would say something like this?

Grade: B

8. Should’ve Listened

This was, weirdly, 1 o’ my favorite songs as a kid. I’m not sure why: it’s pretty hokey, specially with the “la, la, la”s in the background during the chorus & the jangling guitar work thruout. I do like the sensory details ’bout what a shitheap the singer’s exgirlfriend left his place in before she left dodge.

But what I love most is the Genius annotation:

This is song is about an utter moron who expects anyone listening to sympathize with him for deliberately using his own house as a place to party and now it’s destroyed and is a mess. Which is his fault.

Wait, ¿what party? There’s no mention o’ a party in this song. The implication, specially with lines like “why’d she take both sets of keys”, is that his now-ex-girlfriend trashed the place before she left. I mean, that is an interesting interpolation: that the singer’s being vague ’bout what caused his place to be trashed & mentions the 1 thing his ex did, take the keys, to imply that she caused the rest, while leaving out the whole party angle. I can’t imagine someone whining for pity would choose to bring up a party going on. Also, since the singer can’t remember much, he probably did get plastered. I always took it that ’twas his alcoholism that caused her to leave, not a bitchin’ party going on.

This man (the narrator of the song) was not abused sexually or physically nor did he have any harm inflicted on him, he is some foolish frat guy who wants you to feel sorry for his stupidity.

¿Where the fuck did this come from? ¿Who’s implying this? ¿& how do we know nothing happened to him? He certainly wouldn’t know — he’s too drunk to remember anything.

But Nickelback fans are dumb enough to think Chad Kroeger wailing really pathetically (after being “manly” bragging about raping an inebriated woman in the song just before this one Figured You Out”, of course) means this song must about something serious.

Damn, this is the 1st Genius annotation I’ve read that just straight roasts the song ( & the previous song ) & the band. ¿Are there seriously Nickelback fans who think this song is ’bout a man who got date raped? ¿Why do I have a feeling this is a retort gainst some men’s rights activist using this song as a rallying cry gainst “those hoes” that I haven’t read?

I cannot be [sic] believe to this day, that I was told by someone on RYM who “demanded that Dark Horse in it’s entirety be played on the radio, because it was “so good” […]

You’re right, I can’t believe that, either: that album fucking sucks, & this is coming from someone saying nice things ’bout fucking The Long Road. That album, by the way, which probably ended Nickelback’s towering height after All the Right Reasons, is the 1 whose lead single was “Something In Your Mouth”, ’bout how someone would “look better with something in your mouth”. It, in fact, makes things come out o’ my mouth.

Obviously the person who told this is a serious “song”, also said that “Hip hop music and culture as whole supports and condones rape and is “degenerate” and also that everyone who oppose the genocide of Palestinians is a “angry muslim who is upset that “the gays” aren’t being hung”, so it’s not exactly coming from a very intelligent person.

( Laughs ). ¿What the fuck? God damn it, I can’t e’en ’scape people giving their ill-informed hot takes on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a Nickelback review?

And also this is the early 2000s we’re talking about, Korn got radio play despite graphic song lyrics and subject matters for their songs and they still got radio play. I bet this song wouldn’t even be censored, that is how easy it is for this song to get radio play.

I love how this “annotation” just completely goes off the rails from trying to ’splain the meaning o’ this song & just argues gainst some mysterious opinions from somewhere on the internet ’bout how this song isn’t too hot for the radio. Here’s an experiment for you: take these comments I made here for this review, but remove all the quotes o’ the review itself. Incomprehensible, ¿right? That’s how I feel reading the 1 side o’ this conversation.

If I may be devil’s advocate, I don’t think the song is advocating for viewing the protagonist as an innocent hero & the ex-girlfriend as a trifling ho: lines like, “a little trick I picked up from my father: in one ear and out the other”, imply that, in fact, the protagonist is to blame. It seems this reviewer, like a stereotypical /r/badreads candidate, cannot comprehend a protagonist who isn’t morally white by the composer’s morality.

I can’t believe I just wrote a multi-paragraph treatise on a fucking Nickelback song. Clearly this means that The Long Road is just as much a complex, woven tapestry as OK Computer & the heartbreak, sundering relationship, disarray, & chaos o’ this song represents the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Grade: 🧐

9. Throw Yourself Away

So, I always thought this song was a hokey morality play ’bout someone who gets pregnant in high school. But reading the Genius annotation & reading the lyrics mo’ deeply, — something I ne’er thought I’d do for a Nickelback song, but here we are — it’s a hokey morality play ’bout a real-life event where a high school student… ¿gave birth in the bathroom during prom & throws the baby into the trash, for which she gets caught & sentenced for manslaughter? ¿What the fuck? This is such a rare, absurd situation, but Chad treats it with such straightfaced outrage that it’s ridiculous. ¿Was Chad’s hope to end this epidemic o’ throwing babies in prom trash cans? ¿Was he hoping that the baby-trasher would hear this song on the radio & feel such deep guilt that great rock gods Nickelback talks bad ’bout her? ¿What’s the point o’ this song? ¿Were there not mo’ pervasive problems in the world for which to write a protest song? This is a far fall from “Should’ve Listened”’s bold protest gainst Israel’s genocide o’ Palestinians — ¿or was it protesting the protests? I already forgot.

As for the song itself, it sounds like shit.

Grade: F

10. Another Hole in the Head

No, you can’t follow a song ’bout a high school student who gives birth in the bathroom during prom & throws the baby into the trash with a generic breakup song.

Like, uh… ( checks back ) “Feeling Way Too Damn Good”, I like the verses better than the chorus, with the jazzy notes @ the beginning, while the chorus is just generic riffing & shouting that isn’t all that loud.

Grade: C

11. See You At the Show

¿Is it me or has Nickelback been gradually transforming from a mediocre post-grunge rock band to an increasingly shitty country band as this album goes on? It starts with “Should’ve Listened”, with its hokey story o’ drunken breakups & Israeli genocide gainst Palestinians, & then culminates in this song, which is just fucking awful. The way this fucking Canadian drawls e’ery word in this sing-song fashion with this novelty-shop southern accent makes me want to puke. “Cotton-Eye Joe” has mo’ dignity to it. Also, the way he says “till we burn it down” always sounded like “till we’re in bunny town” to me as a kid, which I always thought was stupid, but is mo’ interesting than describing casual acts o’ terrorism.

Grade: F