S’posedly 2 reviewers called this band Deftones the “Radiohead of metal”. Now, I don’t know anything ’bout music beyond what my early 2000s radio stations let me listen to, so I don’t know what this “Radiohead” is or why it’s been detached from its Radiobody, but we can assume it must be cheesy & lame, given that Deftones is a nu-metal band, & e’eryone knows all nu-metal bands are silly & lame.

So we’re going to look @ their biggest album, White Pony.

1. Back to School (Mini Maggit)

We start with the greatest song Deftones has e’er made. ¡Just look @ that amazing music video!

This song, which shows off Chino Moreno’s amazing rippity rapping skills with these hard bars ’bout the street thug life in high school:

while everyone’s out trying to make the cut (what)
& when you think you know me right, i switch it up
behind the walls, smokin’ cigarettes and sippin’ vodka
i hop a fence to catch a cab, ain’t no one can stop us

Yeah, ¡cracka! ¡We be smokin’ cigs & jumping the fence to catch a cab! Paragraph to yo’ auntie.

Then in the chorus he boasts ’bout how back in school, we are the leaders o’ all. ¡Yeah! ¡Fuck being an adult! I’m going back to school to be a leader! ¡Push back that square!

Unironically, this song is musically excellent, especially thanks to those opening high-pitched noodly strings & those menacing low-tuned guitar riffs that bounce up & down thruout the verses while less low guitar noises break thru.

Grade: S

2. Feiticeira

Sadly, we don’t get any mo’ hippity hop songs & the next song is some droning song with super clear, clacking drums that’s ’bout… ¿a Brazilian woman being kidnapped?

Chino Moreno sings here from the perspective of a person who has been kidnapped. He explained on Deftones World: “It’s named after a Brazilian female, but its lyrically about a kidnapping scenario. It details a few hours of being held captive. There’s a lot of dialogue in there that was fun to write.”

That’s, um, an interesting topic to write ’bout. Glad you had fun writing ’bout it.

Tho it’s not as amazing as their previous magnum opus, this song has some great music itself, including the aforementioned super clear, clacking drums, the revving opening strings, & especially the bellowing low notes during the interlude ’tween the 1st & 2nd verses.

Grade: S

3. Digital Bath

Still doing this weird slow, droning singing instead o’ that amazing rapping from “Back to School” for some reason… O, well, this song’s all right with its beautiful imagery o’… ¿somebody leading a girl into a bathtub & murdering her by electrocution by throwing a toaster in it & then standing her corpse up & dressing it? OK, Deftones, ¿what the fuck? Real talk: ’tween these 2 songs & that album cover leering down @ a woman’s cleavage, this band are starting to sound like those weird edgy incels that women avoid in school. ¡You’re not going to be leaders back in school like that, Deftones! Ironically, the fact that this song is so much better written than the average misogynist nu-metal song — & there are a lot — with its strong imagery & detail contrasted gainst the average nu-metal bands’ generic, abstract word salads makes it sound worse.

& for a song with such imagery, ¿who the fuck decided to make the music video just trite footage o’ them playing on stage, them screwing around in their tour bus, crowds cheering, a few scraps o’ unclear imagery — I think there’s 1 shot o’ a bubbling bathtub — &… ¿a custodian mopping the floor? We really needed that clip. Good o’ Deftones to show some support for the underappreciated blue-collar worker, I guess.

Anyway, despite all those flaws, this is a very nice-sounding song, especially its opening smoky whistle noises, more o’ those super clear drums, & those moody notes. I might e’en go far ’nough to say that the bizarre droning singing that goes from tired to loud moaning works well for a bizarre song ’bout killing a woman with a toaster in a bathtub.

Grade: S

4. Elite

I was going to criticize this song as a forgettable banger where the singer just keeps shouting in his whispry voice — ¿where is that rapping, Chino? You’re wasting your Eminem-like skills, man — with a clunky, repetitive melody in both singing & playing, mixed up only with unimpressive filter effects that make the singer sound like an alien. But then I read the lyrics, which are impossible to hear thru Chino’s singing, & they’re amazing: any song with lyrics that go, “stop parading your angles / ¿confused? you’ll know when you’re ripe”, deserves an S in my book. He’s right: people should stop parading their angles; angles aren’t special — e’eryone’s got ’em, folks.

Grade: S

5. Rx Queen

I was going to joke ’bout how I think Deftones is like Radiohead in that they just pull random lyrics out o’ a hat to sound deep, which is how we get lines like, “we’ll stop to rest on the moon”; but to be fair, other than that & most o’ the lyrics from the previous song, this song’s lyrics actually serve a clever metaphor o’ parasitical insects stinging another, killing it for sustenance, for a toxic relationship involving drugs, which fits well with the wasplike low drone o’ this song & the title o’ this song — presumably referring to his girlfriend. I know this song is still falling into the “dead girl syndrome” trope o’ cheap dark drama, but a’least this is a mo’ relatable problem, not just the singer out o’ nowhere coming up with the idea o’ women being kidnapped in Brazil or electrocuted in a bath tub. Plus, this time the song mostly works in abstract metaphors, & this time to the song’s benefit. So, sure, have ’nother S. ¿Why not?

Grade: S

6. Street Carp

Ah, now here we go; now we’re on familiar territory: a man whining ’bout his bitchy ex-wife.

Actually, being 100% honest, this song kinda blows ass. The way Chino sings, “ohhhh, well, here’s my new aaadrehhhhs / ¡6! ¡6! ¡4! ohhhhhh, I forgehhhhht”, sounds so terrible it actually impresses me. Like, you have to be very creative to come up with something so sonically toxic. Meanwhile, the singing & music are just repetitive, bland versions o’ what’s done better on other songs & the opening, where we have grinding guitars filtered thru what sounds like Game Boy Advance speakers & a sudden, “¡nyaaaaaah!”, is just goofy as hell. “It’s not that I care”, indeed. But this song makes me laugh, it has a funny name like “Street Carp”, which Genius tells me is probably this song’s protagonist calling his ex a ho bag, &, most importantly, I have already settled on my joke o’ giving e’ery song on this album as S rank for the memes, so here ya go.

Grade: S

7. Teenager

Not gonna lie: considering how creepy & weird this band has been ’bout women, I felt dread when I saw a song called “Teenagers” that I’d get a good ol’ fashioned Beatles-type “well, she was just 17…”. Luckily, in this case, the protagonist is also a teenager, & this is probably the least creepy song Deftones has e’er wrote ’bout a woman.

I’m a sucker for record player texture — which is why my hipster ass has a vinyl record player & such classics as 3 Three Days Grace albums, Korn’s Issues, & 311’s greatest hits on vinyl — as well as the weird alien sucking noises near the end & those soft drum beats, so have ’nother S.

Grade: S

8. Knife Prty

¿What does Chino have to say ’bout this song?

I made up this fake scenario of some kind of underworld society of knives, people who just get off on these erotic fantasies…or something like that. An ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ kind of thing.

OK, sure, yeah. ¿Does e’ery song need to be ’bout sex, tho? Like, you could just have the “underworld society of knives” without the sex & not make it weird.

Also, you have this weird-ass premise, ¿but you couldn’t come up with a better chorus than, “go get your knife, go get your knife”? ¿& why couldn’t you spell “knife” correctly in the title? ¿Did your “I” key on your keyboard fail to fire like mine keeps doing?

I do kind o’ like the muffled guitar notes that show up @ the beginning & keep coming back, but nothing else is all that interesting. I guess some woman is singing mo’ than halfway thru the song ’cause some woman happened to be singing in the next room. Yeah, that sounds like the reason this random part o’ the song is here.

Unfortunately, I can’t hear the lines, “’cause in here, we are all anemic”, which I’m sure are super deep &, uh, deep, but I can’t hear that line without hearing that e’en mo’ fantastic line from Young Thug: “i’m like i’m anemic too / a Neiman Marcus shoppperrrrr”. & by, “unfortunately”, I mean, “unfortunately, I have to give you an S grade for that”.

Grade: S

9. Korea

The only interesting part o’ this song is that we finally learn the reason this album is called White Pony: it’s cocaine. It’s too bad this is the least interesting song on this album, talking ’bout doing drugs & partying. It doesn’t sound bad, mind you: it has the same crisp production with sharp drumbeats & heavy guitar riffs; I’m just saying, if I had to remove a song, it’d have been this & not “Back to School (Mini Maggit)”.

I mean, e’en the title has no relevance:

While the album was released in 2000, Deftones have not toured South Korea until 2009. Unless they traveled there within that era, the title of the song seems to be unrelated.

Bro, ¿how do you name an entire song “Korea” & not tour in a’least 1 o’ them for nearly a decade? Unless this band did tour in North Korea, which would be pretty bad ass & would immediately merit an S grade, but also hard to believe, I’m afraid I can’t in good conscience give this song an S grade, so I’ll just give it a South Korean flag emoji instead:

Grade: 🇰🇷

10. Passenger

I’ve heard a lot o’ people lavishly praise on this song, presumably ’cause it features Maynard James Keenan, lead singer o’ Tool, e’ery hipster’s favorite prog-metal band, & A Perfect Circle, the band that people list when they want to be e’en mo’ hipster, & the guy whose name I always mix up with the economist John Maynard Keynes. I think it’s all right, I guess. Genius says, “this slow-burning ballad is rife with metaphorical imagery and atmospheric musical arrangements”, ¿& who am I to argue with them? I’ll tell you who I am: J. J. W. Mezun, certified nu-metal specialist. I don’t really see much metaphorical imagery in this song’s lyrics, which mostly seems to describe parts o’ the inside o’ a car mo’ than anything. I also don’t see what’s so atmospheric ’bout the repetitive “nuh-nuh-nuh nuh nuh” riffs thruout most o’ this song, broken off by the sparse, seemingly arrhythmic drum beats ’hind the verses. I do kind o’ like Keenan’s vocal performance on the choruses, I guess. I also find it funny that the Genius note assumes this song is ’bout people having sex in a car, ’cause presumably e’ery Deftones song needs to be ’bout weird sex.

But if e’eryone else is saying this song is amazing, I must be wrong, so here’s ’nother S:

Grade: S

11. Change (In the House of Flies)

You know, it’s ironic that the labels apparently pushed Deftones into making a new song that eventually became their magnum opus, “Back to School (Mini Maggit)”, ’cause this album s’posedly had no hits ( my apologies for the eye-searing white text on red background ), only for this other song to become a far mo’ iconic & successful hit for them. As amazing as “Back to School” is, this song truly defines this band, with its iconic opening notes, ghostly wind sounds, & following foreboding drums, followed by a perishing voice calling out, “i watched you chaaaaange”. Best o’ all, this song takes a break from this album’s typical thematic obsessions with sex & violence gainst women — a’least I think it does — & instead focuses on the classic literary trope o’ someone transforming into an insect like Gregor Samsa. There’s not much imagery to this song’s lyrics — or many lyrics @ all — but that sparseness fits well with this sparse song, which, like Franz Kafka Metamorphosis, is a mystery that is mo’ ’bout what isn’t said than what is.

There. ¿See? I can be just as good a hipster lyrical analyst — I just noticed how goofy that word looks, including the word “anal” in it, as if it meant “somebody who studies rectums” — as any upper-middle-class liberal arts college cracker who won’t shut the fuck up ’bout Tame Impala.

Grade: S

12. Pink Maggit

The acceptance o’ this song by critics & not “Back to School (Mini Maggit)” is proof that critics will love any slow, dreary song, no matter how inane, as this song literally has the same goofy-ass chorus as that song, ’cept now it’s trying to sound serious when saying “pushed back the square” & “’cause back in school / we are the leader of it all” — ’cept in this song we also get some extra violence gainst women with “now that you need her, but you don’t” replaced with “now that you kneed her in the throat”.

Since we are taking these lyrics seriously now apparently, instead o’ just laughing @ their goofiness, I should add that the sentiment ’hind this song is really dumb:

The title comes from a Kool Keith song. We just thought it was some funny stuff. The song is meant to be triumphant. I’m trying to spread a little confidence. Lots of artists try to make songs for the kids who are tormented in school, telling them it’s okay to be tormented. But it’s not okay. Don’t be ridiculed. Become the leader of your surroundings. Confidence is one of the most important things in life. If you are confident, you can do whatever you want.

Chino Moreno

That’s good advice to people being bullied: “¡just stand up for yourself & stop letting yourself be bullied!” This super deep album literally ends with fucking pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps self-help bullshit. Thank you, Deftones, for the best April Fool’s joke.

All that being said… I’m a sucker for the slow build up, with Chino sounding like he’s being strangled like a squealing horse — ¿a squealing white pony? — near the end o’ the intro just to hold it back e’en mo’, only for the song to finally stop edging & finally start cumming with its blast o’ rock-hard guitar riffs that make me rock hard, similar to Tool’s “Parabol” leading into “Parabola” — & therefore turning my cock into a parabola… Wait, I don’t think that’s the right shape.

Having said that, ironically I think this song ending the album only makes it make mo’ sense for this album to start with “Back to School (Mini Maggit)”, giving this album a bookends feel that wouldn’t be there when starting with “Feiticeira”, which also doesn’t start with nearly as iconic an opening as “Back to School”.

Grade: S

Final Verdict

White Pony is a 1-o’-a-kind album, instantly recognizable but impossible to copy, with lyrics taking sharp turns on e’ery song, e’en if many o’ those sharp turns are kinda dumb. ¿But does it have an angsty song ’bout The Wizard of Oz? Because it doesn’t, I’m afraid it doesn’t quite meet an S grade, but will have to settle for a, “白子🐎”.

Final Grade: 白子🐎

(həd)^p.e., which has the weirdest punctuation o’ maybe any band name, is a criminally underrated nu-metal band, especially their classic 2000 album, Broke, which is still an absolute banger, blending in punk & mo’ believably hip hop elements than most nu-metal bands for a much wilder sound.

1. Killing Time

We start with what I think is the best song, starting with those memorable noisy notes, 1st sparsely broken up by long, awkward pauses, & then building into droning regularity. Then we get verses where the singer ironically smoothly croons in his raspy voice ’bout what a fuck up he is, laying around all day doing drugs & watching Jerry Springer, before repeating, “just killing time…”, in an eerily calm voice & then breaking out into a manic snakelike screaming during the chorus, “¡KIIIIIIIIIISSS THE WOOOORLD GOODBYYYYYYYE!”. Then in the 2nd verse we get a different singing style: now the singer is pleading excuses for his empty life. & then during the bridge we get a hammy incoherent rant that seems to vaguely references the 2012 apocalyptic theories based on ( a misinterpretation o’ ) the Mayan calendar & Christian eschatology:

i keep my eyes on the stars
that’s where i come from
belt of orion
son of a sun god
you know my name i’m a conqueror
the lion king kamehameha come
2012 come 12 tribes
come 12 strands come 12 lives
12 steps 12 months 12 motherfuckas
will all make bail kicked ’cause o’ the crowded jail
sex & violence sells
12 serial killers 12 dead without a trail or a trace
it’s prime time the fight night pay per view suicide
the bee sting butterfly

Grade: S

2. Waiting to Die

“Waiting to Die” continues the nihilist theme o’ “Killing Time”, but is, if one could believe it, e’en mo’ unhinged audibly, with the singer growling the profanity-laden verses with weird up-&-down rhythms followed by screaming @ the edge o’ his voice, “¡EVERYBODY DIES!” repeatedly. It’s not quite as interesting as “Killing Time”, but I certainly love its frantic energy.

Grade A

3. Feel Good

This is the most well-known hit from this album, probably partly thanks to the accompaniment o’ System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian adding his own unhinged energy as they both singing in what sounds like a parody o’ duet sing-alongs, singing in pleading voices how they don’t care if the sky is falling, they just want to feel good, while the verses are made up o’ deep-voiced, mainly monotone rapped verses describing how the world is falling apart much like the previous 2 songs, as well as an inner skit o’ part o’ a conversation o’ someone doing drugs & having sex, & this bizarre section where the singer just says 1-word insults o’ increasing vulgarity sparsely separated by pauses & with particularly heavy, hammy pronunciation, especially on “mothafuckaaah”.

Despite the thematic repetition from the past 2 songs, the lyrics & medley o’ styles sounds distinct, with the lyrics being an anachronistic mix o’ Biblical prophecy — mo’ somber & coherent than the rant @ the end o’ “Killing Time” — & contemporary hiphop boast talk.

In essence, this is yet ’nother crazy-ass song.

Grade S

4. Bartender

This was the other hit from this song — apparently bigger back then, as it actually has a music video. This song goes back & forth from sleazy, smooth, jazzy verses o’ the protagonist trying desperately to get with a woman in a scuzzy bar with footage o’ strippers dancing on poles & standard nu-metal shouting choruses with the typical footage o’ the band playing ’hind a wire fence in front o’ cement walls with graffiti & plenty o’ red light, whose shouts o’, “I JUST WANT YOUR COMPANY”, only emphasize the protagonist’s desperation. The bridge then slows down into a hango’er-like slow slump, repeating the beginning o’ the 1st verse, “ain’t nothin’ working / ain’t nothin’ right / there’s a hole in me that i can’t fill / no matter how hard i try”, showing how li’l the protagonist’s vying for hedonistic excess has gotten him. None o’ this revolutionary artistry, ’course, but this song’s storytelling & the way it matches the music is much mo’ competently done than most o’ the nu-metal I look @. Just compare to something like Hollywood Undead’s magnum opus, “Everywhere I Go”.

Grade: A

5. Crazy Legs

I guess this is the party song, which weirdly remixes the chorus to The Notorious B. I. G.’s “Hypnotize” as its chorus. I think this would’ve worked better coming before “Bartender” instead o’ after: it’s a weird sequence to go from a dour song ’bout the emptiness o’ hedonism to an unironic celebration o’ sex parties. The singer’s performance on the 2nd verse & especially the bridge are great, but this song does feel like 1 o’ the less memorable songs on this album that treads themes that were better done in earlier songs; it kinda just feels like a weaker version o’ the 4 songs preceding.

Grade: B

6. Pac Bell

Thankfully, that song is followed by a much mo’ different song. Yes, it’s an angsty song ’bout troubled relationships & how it’s led the protagonist to suicidal depression; but albums almost entirely dedicated to that theme are hardly rare in nu-metal. Like many o’ the other songs, it’s the singer’s performance in the verses & how he twists his voice in such a deranged way, e’en when saying something as mundane as “¿why the fuck you fucking with me?”, that makes the difference.

E’en mo’ different, howe’er, is the chorus, with its autotune-sounding emotionless singing, “we used to drive all the time”, that sounds mo’ like the kind o’ songs you’d hear in the 2010s, not anything like what I’d hear in nu-metal albums.

To add to the surrealism, this song’s title is “Pac Bell”, the title o’ an ol’ phone company that 2 years later would be bought by AT&T. It’s relevant, since this song is ’bout someone trying to call his ex, & the song does start & end with the robotic voice o’ an automatic operator asking the protagonist, “if you’d like to make a call, please hang up & try again”.

Grade: A

7. I Got You

Wait, ¿this song had a music video, but not “Feel Good”? I ne’er e’en heard o’ this song before now. Granted, listening to this song, I can imagine this song was probably played @ many concerts, as it seems particularly made for such, with the following lyrics in particular seeming to call out to people to dance:

all my people come on
choose your side
you’re a long way from home
but not alone

To be honest, this song’s doesn’t have as much as the others on this album, with much vaguer lyrics — tho I do like the line, “yeah, eat the rich / but pay me motherfucker”. But, ’gain, I just love this singer’s performance, such as the way his voice dies out a li’l in his throat when he says “afraid” in “they are afraid of you” @ the beginning o’ the 2nd verse &, ’course, the houndlike way he barks, “yeah, I got you” in the chorus.

You can most clearly hear Korn’s influence on this bad in this song, with its music-box low, dreary start to the verse & the singer’s low, raspy, menacing sing-songy voice starting, “Mmm mmm mmm mmm…”.

Grade: B

8. Boom (How You Like That)

¿This had a music video, too? ¿How did all these songs have music videos & not “Feel Good”? That must’ve been some blacksheep hit then.

This song has a couple o’ highlights. For me the best being during the bridge when the singer calls out various people to say, “¿how you like that?”, & asks whiteboys to say it & a bunch o’ super honkey voices say it. That’s pretty funny.

That said, while the song in itself is a fun banger, compared to other tracks on this album it feels less interesting, repeating the same themes, with the same vague social commentary you’d find from many lower-tier nu-metal bands like Papa Roach: “we’re so desensitized, we were raised on TV, something something, American Dream”. E’en the call out for various people to shout, “¿how you like that?” goes on too long: ¿did he really need to ask virtually e’ery city in the US? Nothing in this song is cringe a’least.

Grade: C

9. Swan Dive

I’m surprised this song got a music video; but unlike the previous 2 songs, this time I have listened to this song before & this time it’s a pleasant surprise, as I always liked this song with its jazzy verses with the protagonist poetically describing himself climbing up a building, “putting distance between I & I & the ground”, only to then shout ’bout how it’s ’cause he wants to jump off & “swan dive” into the asphalt. In a genre where suicide is typically described either abstractly or with the cliché emo imagery o’ wrist-slitting, a song with the mo’ concrete ( pun not intended ) imagery o’ the very, very brutal death o’ smashing one’s body gainst the street from several stories high is refreshing.

& then in the bridge the protagonist seems to answer — well, maybe not really answer, given how incoherent it is — why he’s suicidal with rants up @ the sky ’bout all the evils in the world, which would be trite if ’twere just him asking, “¿where is the compassion?”, but is made mo’ interesting with bizarre questions like, “tell me, ¿who can control the floods?”, hinting @ the mental disturbance going on in the protagonist’s head, amplified by the bearlike growl the singer employs when answering, “¡NO ONE!”, after each question in the 2nd half.

Grade: A

10. Stevie

( Laughs ). What a weird-ass song:

come on, I’m not deaf or dumb
I’m not little Stevie Wonder
whatever
¡No more lies!

Yes, that’s the chorus & the basis for this song being named “Stevie”. The fact that he caps that imaginative comparison with the bland, “¡No more lies!”, only adds to the absurdity.

Other than that, this is 1 o’ the mo’ middle-ground songs on this album, neither relatively strong nor weak. I do like the jazzy, smooth, & sing-songy 1st 2 verses & the particular way the singer becomes unhinged round the 2nd half o’ the 3rd verse.

Grade: B

11. Jesus (Of Nazareth)

¡✝-rock jump scare!

Actually, unlike corny bands like Thousand Foot Krutch or Skillet, with their Kroeger-brand mass-manufactured WASP evangelism with generic celebrations o’ how wicked ( ¡in a cool way! ) Jesus is & fairy tales o’, um, a psychologist convincing a couple to hold a funeral for the woman’s aborted fetus… this song is much mo’ complex: the singer doesn’t seem to really believe in Jesus, saying to the crucifix on his wall, which inspires paranoid fear rather than hope or comfort, “I can’t believe a single word that you’re saying / I see your lips moving, but nothing’s coming out”, & seems to only be turning to Jesus out o’ pure desperation. & the song ends with the singer expressing doubt that it’ll work:

they’re telling me to take my own life
breathe my last breath, eat my last meal
you got what you deserve
¿how’s that feel?

This deliberate comparison to Jesus with “eat my last meal” makes it ambiguous whether or not the protagonist is criticizing himself or criticizing Jesus, including the line earlier, “mass murder, court convicted, terroristic creature of the night”. I mean, Jesus was convicted by a court; & if Jesus is God in human flesh, there was that whole flood that killed nearly e’ery human; & I would call passover, wherein God killed the 1st-born o’ e’ery non-Jewish-person in Egypt round midnight to scare Egypt into freeing Jewish people the act o’ a “terroristic creature of the night”… I’m probably reading too much into this… Still, a’least I can do that instead o’ just making jokes ’bout Thousand Foot Krutch making a song ’bout being sorry one wasted one’s life just jerking off all the time.

While not mindblowing, I like the shifts from the eerie sparse piano notes — which sound a lot like the ones on “meet the grahams”, just so I can keep talking ’bout that year-ol’ beef — with low bass notes & tired vocals vs. the loud choruses.

Grade: A

11. The Meadow (Special Like You)

( Note: this song also has a music video, but it’s just mo’ concert playing & hanging round their tour bus & doesn’t include the whole 9-minute track ).

This is a nice song, especially with the funk notes in the background, which was not something you saw much in nu-metal. The way the singer’s voice rasps out a bit during the chorus is a nice touch.

E’en better, this song ends with some woman babbling ’bout elephants thru a fast food speaker box.

To add to the absurdity — ’cause e’en this otherwise nice ballad can’t be normal — this track’s dour ending is flipped after a pause with a secret track that’s just outtakes & goofing around. Such is the emotional complexity o’ nu-metal.

Grade: B

Final Verdict

This album unironically holds up much better than most o’ the albums I’ve looked @ in this series, blending some o’ the weirdness o’ nu-metal with much less cringe edgy elements & a much wilder less polished sound. Tho thematically it does get a bit repetitive, stylistically it has mo’ variance & does mo’ that other nu-metal bands didn’t do. It’ll probably ne’er warrant the critical acclaim o’ bands like Sevendust or Deftones; or bands I’ve ne’er heard o’ that are probably only acclaimed on Rate Your Music because they’re obscure like The Shiznit, Ikd-sj, or Stepa; or… ¿Incubus’s S.C.I.E.N.C.E., ranked as the 10th highest rated on Rate Your Music? That’s actually pretty based. I’ll definitely be talking ’bout that 1 eventually…

Anyway, I think this album should be remembered mo’, especially since it makes a better balance o’ being mo’ fun than the drearier o’ acclaimed artists while being less embarrassing than your Limp Bizkits — up there with, like, Korn, maybe.

Final Grade: A

I think it’s time we take another look @ our friends, Breaking Benjamin. This time I’ve chosen their 1st LP, Saturate, for 2 reasons: 1, it gets less attention than their other albums, & 2, it has 1 song in particular that I’ve been dying to write ’bout. Hopefully the rest o’ the album gives me something to talk ’bout, too.

1. Wish I May

O, man, you know a song is hardcore when it starts with a scream.

Well, I’ll say 1 thing ’bout this song: Ben does a good job o’ sounding drunk on this song, with the way he slurs his speech & the tipsy way he says the incoherent line, “we left this land of shiny lights”. That’s not a snide “compliment”, either: this song is really ’bout alcoholism, so it fits.

Unfortunately, otherwise, this song sounds very generic, especially compared to the kind o’ songs they would write on this same subject thruout, say, the album Dear Agony, & doesn’t have the kind o’ cheese I’m looking for.

Grade: C

2. Medicate

This song’s an OK banger, but also not as good as a lot o’ the stuff they’d do later, & doesn’t have anything that stands out as either unironically good or good, either. ¿Did I make a mistake choosing this album? I do kinda like the menacing way Ben sings the verses; & while the lyrics are generic, the chorus is mildly catchy.

Grade: C

3. Polyamorous

the day has come to an end
the sun is over my head

¿What? ¿How?

Honestly, given how many anti-romance songs in these kind o’ early 2000s angsty genres like nu-metal & post-grunge blame it on the the significant other for being vaguely bitchy, it’s somewhat refreshing see a song that blames the protagonist for being a cheating douche. I also like the play on the title “polyamorous” sounding poetic & romantic itself while just being ’bout how the singer can’t control himself from sleeping around, which fits with this song’s lyrics involving the protagonist trying to justify & minimize the consequences o’ said sleeping around, repeating in the chorus, “I ne’er hurt anyone”. I also find it funny that this angsty anti-romance song starts & ends with Ben shouting in his raspy voice, “¡let’s go!”, like he’s ’bout to get the club going.

I also appreciate this music video’s set design for having the band play in what looks like a giant bath tub.

Grade: B

4. Skin

I always thought this song was ’bout becoming an ol’ has-been — a funny topic for your 1st major album, but 1 with which I, as someone who has dedicated an article e’ery month or so to waxing nostalgically ’bout ol’ nu-metal albums, can relate; but taking a closer look — or just reading the Genius annotations — & it seems this is ’bout Ben dumping some woman ’cause he thinks she’s gotten ol’ & he’s gotten bored o’ her. That’s kind o’ funny, too, I guess, especially with the catchy, poppy way he sings it. ¡& it is, indeed, catchy! I can’t help singing ’long, “”cause you’re old, & battered & beateeeeen…”, & especially the very throaty way he sings, “& we’ll throw” afterward.

Grade: A

5. Natural Life

I swear e’ery line o’ this song is a different cliché & Ben sounds bored singing, “your natural life, you’re born, you die”, in a nah, nah, nah, nah fashion. I do like the cannon shots during the bridge, like this is the 1812 Overture, tho it doesn’t fit this song @ all.

Grade: D

6. Next to Nothing

This song has, unironically, some o’ Ben’s best singing, especially during the 1st verse when he says, “you know I’ll always be around”. It’s too bad that lyrics & music are pretty meh. I guess the chorus is kind o’ catchy, in a poppy way. ¿Is it too late to switch this out for Phobia? I think I’d actually have mo’ to say ’bout that album.

Grade: C

7. Water

¿What the hell is this song? I don’t e’en remember this song. You’d think I’d remember a song with the mysterious title, “Water”.

¿what’s all this talk of emotion?
i’d rather drink from the ocean

¡Ha, ha! ¡Those are amazing lines to open with! That’s some “you were wrong, since the beginning o’ the bomb” type rhyming just to rhyme there, & I live for it.

Actually, I’ve come to like this song ’bout Ben arguing with a bottle o’ booze, specially the imagery o’ alcoholism being like an anthropomorphic bottle o’ booze holding someone’s head underwater; & realizing that’s what this song is ’bout, the 1st 2 lines e’en make sense now. I also like the choppy, foreboding sound to this song, which has a drowning-like sound to it.

Grade: A

8. Home

¡Here’s the song I was looking for! This song is a treasure & I will fight to my dying breath for it to be put in the registry o’ nu-metal songs worth meming ’bout: take Ben’s angsty perishing singing but mix it with lyrics ’bout, I shit you not, The Wizard of Oz. If you haven’t listened to any o’ these songs, ¡you have to listen to this song! This jabroni legit sings “& I’m gonna get you & your li’l dog, too” like this is a song ’bout his wife dying. If you’re too cowardly to sing ’long to the bridge —

in the black & the white
a technicolor life
then another arrived
¡it’s a cowardly lion!

— with as much dramatis as Ben does in this song, you are a fucking beta. ¡I said it!

I think this song is s’posed to be metaphorical, but you can’t go indepth into the lore o’ The Wizard of Oz as these lyrics do ’bout an “a man made of tin with an oil-can grin” when your song is s’posed to be ’bout something deeper.

I should also note that this “music video” isn’t official in the slightest — ¡but it should be!

Grade: S

9. Phase

In case you think Ben’s done trolling, we follow that masterpiece with what starts out sounding like Breaking Benjamin attempting a cover o’ “DK Island Swing” from Donkey Kong Country. But, you know: it actually works with this song, whose subject manner is interesting: it’s ’bout hypochondria & having several phobias & how people tell you — or you tell yourself — that it’s “just a phase”; such wild fear does fit with a jungle-like sound.

Grade: A

10. No Games

You heard Ben: he’s not fucking around anymo’. This game is o’er & he’s mean & older. Granted, the soothing croon in which he sings this doesn’t convey much meanness…

Hold on: ¿how does he end the chorus?

& i bend to your will
i’ve fellated myself

i dunno, that sounds like a pretty common game men play to me. &, yes, he does sing that last line with the urgency he sang, “& your li’l dog, too”. I’m not going to waste any time talking ’bout petty things like how this song sounds: you get an automatic S rank for that.

Grade: S

11. Sugarcoat

I love how his lines ’bout how he’ll “never know your sugarcoat” paired with “suck on your lies till your eyes turn red” imply he’s jealous ’cause she’s sucking some other guy’s dick in secret while he can’t e’en get a taste o’ that Wet Ass Pussy™. I ne’er realized how, um… mo’ vulgar this earlier album is ( then again, this is the band that made “Topless” for Phobia ).

Musically, I do like the contrast o’ the acoustic strings & soft singing in the verses gainst the banging riffs, beats, & screaming o’ the chorus.

Grade: B

12. Shallow Bay

¿Another song ’bout Ben being thirsty? ¡Finish up before getting in the booth, Ben! That’s just common courtesy. Especially when you hurt your chances with whoe’er this theoretical woman is with, “i don’t think you want to fuck with me”, sung with his voice crackling out weakly, which is certainly a sonic choice. I think the lines ’bout him “float[ing] upon a shallow bay” hint that the protagonist o’ this song is s’posed to be a pathetic drunk, so the irony is probably intentional.

During the few couple years that Breaking Benjamin were a band, the band would close the setlist with this song, with frontman Ben Burnley dedicating the song to “all you Shallow Bay-ers out there.”

Genius

That just makes my interpretation e’en funnier: “¡Here’s for all you drunk fuck bois out in the crowd! — ¡you know who you are! ¡You’re in your mid 30s & @ a god damn Breaking Benjamin concert!”.

Grade: C

13. Forever

This is just the song they put on during the end credits ’cause they know nobody’s going to sit there & read them all. I can take a cue: it’s time for me to leave this movie theater.

Grade: D

Final Verdict

¿Would you believe me if I said my opinion o’ this album actually improved on this listen? The lyrics were mo’ interesting than I remember, as are some o’ the musical choices. Granted, this mainly applies to the latter half; the 1st half was pretty forgettable.

Final Grade: C

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before in 1 o’ these installments, but Linkin Park is 1 o’ the few nu-metal bands that people generally consider to not be embarrassing anymo’, which, to be cynically blunt, has a lot to do with the lead singer’s suicide — let’s be real: if it hadn’t happened, half o’ these posers out there would still be meming ’bout the crawling that was occurring inside his skin. I am the exception, ’course: I was defending them long before, as I defend bands that still haven’t become appreciated like classic Three Days Grace — but not that latest single they released with the original singer back in the band: that song like o’erproduced trash & I have no idea what they did to poor Adam Gontier’s voice.

Anyway, it’s 2024 & Linkin Park recently released their 1st album since Bennington’s passing with a new singer, Emily Armstrong. Said singer has some controversy surrounding Scientology & supporting or seeming to support that guy from That 70s Show who was sentenced to 30 years in jail for rape. It seems e’ery nu metal band needs to have some member doing something cringe, whether it be signing IDF missiles, bitching ’bout not being able to buy Dr. Seuss books on ebay & WAP for making a better song than his band will e’er make, participating in that shitty Nostalgia Critic review ’bout The Wall, & the billions o’ stupid things that guy from Trapt said, so unfortunately, I can’t only review the albums by innocent people like Papa Roach, who I know have ne’er done anything wrong in their life, & it’s not like me talking ’bout any o’ these albums is glowing recommendations to give them money. As a dirty commie, I don’t believe in giving money to anyone: that’s your money; hoard that shit like the gnomes do.

1. From Zero (Intro)

Linkin Park oft starts albums with throw’way intro tracks, going all the way back to Meteora starting with sounds o’ throwing shit around for some reason. I ne’er understood it as a kid & I still don’t now. This 1 is probably the weakest o’ them all: half o’ it is generic chanting & then the rest is some background clip o’ who I assume is the new lead singer trying to figure out why the album is named “From Zero”. ¿Who cares? ¿Does anyone know why the 2nd album is called “Meteora” or what that e’en means? In the past 20 years o’ that album’s existence I’ve ne’er heard anyone ask why, ’cause nobody cares: it sounds cool, that’s why.

Grade: F

2. The Emptiness Machine

The 1st single comes surprisingly right out the gate on this album. I like the calm way the song starts with low piano notes, muffled drum beats, & Mike Shinoda’s melodic singing, contrasted with the mo’ bombastic 2nd verse introducing the new lead singer, Emily Armstrong.

Not surprisingly, the Genius annotations are full o’ theorizing ’bout this song’s vague lyrics ’bout the vague “you” being nothing but critical o’ the protagonists & how they just “want to be part o’ something”, &, yeah, that could be the case… but Linkin Park has been writing ’bout this kind o’ stuff from the beginning — just compare to the lyrics o’ “Numb”, which, if it had come out on this album, would get the same theorizing, with lines ’bout feeling numb ( ’cause o’ the loss o’ Chester Bennington ) or struggling with the feeling o’ being “put under the pressure of walking in your shoes” — yeah, imagine the implications o’ Armstrong singing that line. Seriously, try out this game with all kinds o’ songs like “Papercut” or “Somewhere I Belong”.

In short, unless a line really sticks out, I’m not going to put much thought into it & treat it as the same abstract angst they’ve been writing since Hybrid Theory.

Grade: A

3. Cut the Bridge

I’m not so fond o’ the chorus for this song, which just sounds like melody-less shouting, which is too bad, as I do like the menacing way Armstrong sings the prechorus, which stands out much mo’. I must say that I’m happy Linkin Park didn’t try to make Armstrong sing like Bennington but allowed her to sing in her own style.

I know I mentioned I wasn’t going to focus on lyrics much, but this is different. ¿What the hell are with the verses Mike be spittin’?

& I can’t even tell if you’ve been tellin’ me a lie
every time you start it’s like the 4th day of July
reckless like you’re makin’ rockets just to blow up in the sky

1st, maybe this isn’t Shinoda’s fault, but I can’t hear a rhyme o’ “lie” & “July” without hearing that wack bar from Drake in “Slime You Out”: “July, that’s when I found out you lied”. 2nd… ¿What is this metaphor? ¿Shooting off fireworks on the 4th o’ July, a day for setting off fireworks, is the most “reckless” example you could think of? I guess it’s creative, a’least.

& then that’s followed by, “feelin’ like it’s chemical, all under my skin like it’s medical”, which doesn’t e’en make sense: ¿how is something being under someone’s skin inherently “medical”? I’ve ne’er thought Mike Shinoda was Nas or anything, but this kind o’ lyrical-spherical whiteboy nu-metal rapping is mo’ on the level o’ a Jacoby Shaddix.

Grade: D

4. Heavy Is the Crown

All right, here’s a much better song. While I wouldn’t consider the lyrics brilliant, they’re much better than “Cut the Bridge”’s, as is Shinoda’s flow, especially the subtle twists to the rhythm done @ the beginning o’ the 2nd verse. I also find the line @ the end o’ the prechorus, “’cause I’m tired of explaining what the joke is”, a genuinely clever twist on that cliché line that I’ve ne’er heard used in the context o’ what sounds like a failing relationship.

But the best part o’ this song is the opening mix o’ electronic symphony & electric guitar which sounds like what you’d find in 1 o’ the best songs o’ Meteora.

Grade: A

5. Over Each Over

But this song is less interesting — not quite as bad as “Cut the Bridge”, but not interesting. Honestly, it sounds like a lot o’ the generic post-grunge stuff I’d hear on the radio station literally just called “The Rock” @ the end o’ when I still listened to the radio, with the o’erproduced electronic loudness that doesn’t seem to know what tone it wants to portray & the way Armstrong o’ersings e’erything. Also, the constant refrain o’ “over each other” gets kind o’ grating.

Also, I swear the background talk noise clip @ the end where Mike Shinoda tells Emily Armstrong to “get her screaming pants on” is the worst thing I’ve e’er heard on a Linkin Park album.

Grade: D

6. Casualty

There are some vocal flourishes I like in this song — especially Mike Shinoda’s raspy singing, which I’ve ne’er heard on any other album before — & the slight back & forth the 2 singers had in the prechorus — tho I wish there was more o’ that. I also like a few o’ the record scratches; but for the most part the music just sounds like walls o’ heavy riffs & this song is clearly trying too hard to be the “heavy” song on the album without much else inspiration. While I appreciate the desire to add variety, it comes off as Linkin Park failing to play to their strengths & failing to bring what this kind o’ genre brings better. If I want this kind o’ wall o’ yelling & riffing, I’d rather stick with Lamb of God, who have mo’ rhythm & riff variation.

Grade: C

7. Overflow

Whereas the other songs that deviated from Linkin Park’s older sound sounded mo’ like pale, watered-down imitations of other styles, this song’s deviation sounds much mo’ creative & unique — with the exception o’ the main light tone in the background, which sounds kind o’ like the main notes to “Crawling”; but given that’s the only thing ’bout this song that sounds similar to that song, it’s actually mo’ interesting that they made the callback, if ’twas intentional. Mike Shinoda’s rapping sounds much mo’ modern than his usual ol’ school Run-DMC flow & fits the ethereal tone o’ this song; same with Armstrong’s dour singing on the chorus.

Grade: A

8. Two Faced

This is a Hybrid Theory style banger with plenty o’ catchy hooks, including the great idea o’ having the verses & choruses break into 2 catchy hooks each. In fact, it perhaps sounds a bit too much like Hybrid Theory, with the bridge sounding very similar to the famous “¡SHUT UP WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU!” bridge o’ “One Step Closer”. Granted, Armstrong does a great job with her version, especially with the various ways she whispers, “I can’t hear myself think” early on. & I’m a sucker for any song that ends with record scratching whilin’ out — it’s been too long since Mr. Hahn, who is truly the best member o’ the group, got to work his magic again.

Grade: B

9. Stained

While most o’ this album sounds like nostalgic throwbacks to noughties nu-metal, this song sounds like a throwback to 2010s “indie” electronic rock, including the millennial whoas. ¿Has it been long enough for those to go from being a hated cliché to fond nostalgic memory? Eh, as goofy as it is, it is kinda catchy. This song’s all right.

Grade: B

10. IGYEIH

Musically, this is very middle-o’-the-road — a “Runaway”, you could say. If you ask me, “¿What the hell is ‘Runaway’? ¿You mean the Kanye West song?”, that answers your question: it’s the Hybrid Theory song you don’t remember. I guess there is that weird squeaky sound in the background sometimes. It’s kind o’ annoying, tho, so I’d hardly consider it a +.

Lyrically, this song is mixed. There are some lines I would actually call pretty good, like the good ol’ emo line, “I write all the memories down all over my skin”, which is a metaphor I’m surprised I haven’t heard before ( for tattoos, yes; cutting oneself, no ); but then we get goofy-ass lines like, “The clock keeps ticking, the rules aren’t written” — ¿what rules? ¿what the fuck are you talking ’bout? — or “I give you everything I have, all you give me is your ugliness”. O, no, don’t give me your ugliness. & while “Forgotten doesn’t mean that it’s forgiven this time” is a relatively clever line, unfortunately I haven’t forgotten you used that same line on the previous song.

Grade: C

11. Good Things Go

For most o’ the song I didn’t have anything to say ’bout this song, ’twas so middle-o’-the-road, but then the bridge came on & Mike decided to rap like some mediocre modern rapper who for some reason making sounds like, “eh” & “oh” ’tween lines sounds cool. He should’ve gone all the way & made those weird sounds that mumble rappers always did, like, “¡brrrrddddup!” or “¡shoo shoo!”. That’s the new kind o’ nu-metal we’ve been needing all this time: mumble rap metal.

But, yeah, otherwise this is a very tepid sad song with standard low notes, ’cept for maybe the crescendoing melody @ the end o’ the chorus being somewhat catchy, only to be ruined by the lame lyrics, “sometimes bad things take the place where good things go”.

Grade: C

Final Verdict

E’en tho I’ve come across as somewhat dismissive in some o’ these song reviews, o’erall this album is better than I would’ve expected, especially given the circumstances. Since their 1st 2 classic albums Linkin Park has struggled to evolve, sometimes with disappointing results that seem to be tied too closely to trends, sometimes with interesting surprises. This album is probably Linkin Park doing their best balance o’ hearkening back to their ol’ sound while still sounding distinct itself & not sounding too much like a sad self bootleg. It’s pretty far from my favorite o’ their albums, but not @ the bottom, either.

In fact, I’d say my biggest complaint ’bout this album is its cover, with its random pink bubbling liquid o’er some random surface, which reminds me too much o’ Metallica’s Load album cover with blood & semen mixed together — no, I’m not exaggerating: that’s really what it is.

Final Grade: B

Like with Disturbed’s Believe, I don’t think anyone e’en remembers that this album, Papa Roach’s sophomore — unless you count their weird primordial albums like the EP Old Friends from Young Years or whate’er the hell Potatoes for Christmas was — album, lovehatetragedy — which, to its credit, was ahead o’ the pack by implementing the hipster all-lowercase, no spaces, style that many hipster indie rock bands like “lovelytheband” would use in the 2010s — after their big breakout hit Infest with classics like “Last Resort” & the song whose background music was used in the online classic, “Ram Ranch”, e’er existed. Like a surprising lot o’ nu-metal bands, Papa Roach saw the writing on the wall early & ditched nu-metal & whiteboy gangster rapping for… some sort o’ vague alt rock. It’s not surprising nobody remembers this album, as it doesn’t stick in the mind. I have some nostalgia for this album, & always liked its warm, moody guitar work as a kid, — what the zoomzooms would call “vibes” — but it’s mo’ an album you would listen to in the background while sleeping than something you’d actually pay attention to. It’s telling that I’m only learning ’bout much o’ the lyrics today as I review this, since I clearly ne’er gave a shit ’bout them as a kid.

There’s no good reason for me to be reviewing this album’s songs other than morbid curiosity @ trying to see if I can find something to say ’bout it. If you’re looking for funny memes, I’d move on. Only read these reviews if you, too, are morbidly curious to see opinions on an album that nobody else has e’er cared ’bout ’cause, seriously, ¿who the hell else is wasting their time doing a track-by-track review o’ the sophomore album by the “cut my life into pieces” band?

1. M-80 (Explosive Energy Movement)

This album starts with a standard banger that ne’er stuck with me. It’s not bad or cringe, but it’s also not funny or particularly memorable, specially if you start listening to better alt rock bands. I think my biggest problem with this song is Jacoby’s trying so hard to talk ’bout how “filthy” & “nasty” & “dirty” — so much that he says that word twice in the same line — he is, but the song sounds so clean & polished. Most o’ the lines are very generic or outright perplexing. ¿What is “demented as the night is long” mean? Nights are not always long — hell, in some places @ certain times, it’s daytime all day.

Also, rock songs talking ’bout rock itself — specially when you use the full phrase “rock ’n roll” like you’re a boomer — is cringe unless you’re ACDC.

Grade: D

2. Life is a Bullet

This song is a better picture o’ this album’s general sound: a dour song with dour downtuned guitars & generic lyrics with generic metaphors ’bout life: in this case life being a bullet — I guess ’cause life is mean, or something. It’s neither the best nor worst song. It exists.

I will say, tho, I do kind o’ like the line, “you caused the fire, now fuck the flame”; not because it means anything or anything: I just find the imagery o’ someone trying to go cock 1st into a flame like that dude did to the pie in American Pie funny.

Genius commentators clearly disagree, howe’er, as someone wrote an entire thesis paper on this song’s deep — like Jacoby’s speech, deep like the sea — meaning with references to, I shit you not, ol’ philosophers like, um… “Socrates Plato”, which is actually 2 different people. I mean, Plato did appropriate much o’ Socrates’ work, since Socrates was too lazy to write anything down, but still:

The song explains the forces that subject us to the brutality of our society, which does not care about you or me.
He could explain everything, the fire, and how our inaccurate perception of reality facilitates the brutality, but nobody is going to listen because our minds have been shut down, regardless of the pain we see in others and ourselves daily. Fuck the flame, separate our souls from our body, the goal of every philosopher, from Socrates Plato and beyond.
Life is a bullet, the experiences we face prove it, not our identity. Identity is a trick in which our creation of, is imposed on us for the soul purpose of developing a platform which can be exposed, by easily tearing of our fronts, spilling out what we conceal, as vulnerable individuals. This is what divides us into easily controlled segments of society.

Genius

Grade C

3. Time and Time Again

This music video is the “Pepsi version”, whate’er that means. The main difference is that they censor “pills”, ’cause we wouldn’t want kids to go taking too many Flintstone vitamins ’cause Daddy Roach told ’em to. Look out, guys: I just took my daily prescribed antianxiety meds. ¡’Cause I’m a reckless, I’m a reckless god damn son o’ a bitch! ’Course, committing various traffic violations & endangering road safety ’cause you’re too distracted jamming out to this sick beat is fine to show. I do like how they have a black guy — a nerdy black guy with glasses & a nasally voice — cosign these crackers’ hard rappin’ by telling them to TURN THAT SHIT UP only for them to turn it up so loud his glasses break — ¡O shit!

Anyway, I guess the verses have a better balance o’ having that rhythm o’ rapping but without sounding like a gangster wannabe, tho the chorus is bland. But then we get lines like “emotional swords slash my soul”, which… I dunno, man. I feel like giving your metaphorical noun an adjective that it’s s’posed to represent is cheating, like Super Scribblenauts players who just add the word “invincible” to e’erything, specially when that adjective is as broad as “emotional”. You could replace “sword” & “slash” with anything & it’d work as well: “emotional guns shoot my soul”, “emotional fists punch my soul”, etc. I guess there’s some alliteration.

I once read in a review I read decades ago that this song was apparently ’bout the lead singer’s dog dying, but can’t find any mention o’ this tidbit on Genius.com. In fact, Genius.com doesn’t say shit ’bout most o’ these songs ’cept the previous 1 — almost as if I’m the only person on earth who gives the slightest shred ( & as these reviews show, it’s a very slight shred ) o’ a shit ’bout this album. Also, the lyrics seem to be mo’ ’bout a breakup, so I think the review was making it up. Honestly, being ’bout their dog dying would’ve made it mo’ interesting. Maybe the reviewer got this idea from the song starting with Jacoby howling “¡OW! ¡OW!” like a dog @ the beginning.

Grade: C

4. Walking Through Barbed Wire

This is a much better banger than “M-80” whate’er ’twas called, with those rusty guitar riffs. Also, there’s a’least some imagery here with the whole “walking through barbed wire” thing… tho it’s a pretty cliché symbol, & the rest o’ the metaphors & similes filling this song are similarly trite, including outright stale figures o’ speech like “kissing death” & “walking tall like trees”.

Grade: B

5. Decompression Period

Honestly, this gets a much higher grade than probably all the other songs only ’cause “decompression” acting as both a metaphor for letting out one’s frustration & sounding like “depression” is probably the only legit clever wordplay Papa Roach has e’er done.

& as a ballad it’s not that bad, probably ’cause oddly for Papa Roach it’s not that bombastic or full o’ too much cheese. Granted there are a lot o’ trite phrasing & repetitive lyrics, but for a song as depressed as this it kind o’ fits. There are much, much better songs that do this same thing, but look @ where our standards are. Plus, I kind o’ like how the song gradually builds energy. That cheap trick always gets me.

The aforementioned review also claimed this song was ’bout some inner band turmoil, with the reviewer e’en joking ’bout this song being Jacoby singing ’bout how he didn’t want to hang out with his band anymo’. Like with “Time and Time Again”, I can no longer find any hint o’ this idea anywhere else, so this reviewer could’ve just made up this interpretation, too.

Speaking o’ out-o’-nowhere interpretations, here’s what Genius has to say ’bout the seemingly innocuous line, “& I need some space…”:

Metes and bounds is a system or method of describing land, real property or real estate. The system has been used in England for many centuries, and is still used there in the definition of general boundaries.

Set those boundaries wisely. People’re bound to explode.

Well, I’ve certainly become a genius with these enlightening words o’ wisdom that have been shared to me.

Grade: B

6. Born with Nothing, Die with Everything

Yup, ’nother banger, better than “M-80”, but not as good as “Walking Through Barbed Wire”, or whate’er that song was called. I have to say, @ this point I’ve come to kinda appreciate the weird mechanical warmth o’ the guitar thruout this album, which works better for a mo’ banal song like this than, say, “M-80”, which is trying to be a big blast up the ass, but was just, eh.

After Genius’s fount o’ knowledge before, you may be wondering, ¿what have these historians discovered ’hind the arcane words, “People wake up & sing along”? Well wonder no mo’:

When people sing along they do it because they have or want to have that same mind state illustrated in the song

Thank you, Explain-O-Bot 4000™ for that thorough explanation on how the flesh creatures operate.

Grade: B

7. She Loves Me Not

’Nother example o’ Papa Roach’s terrible choices for singles. I know it’d be silly to get all hipster when talking ’bout Papa Roach, but this is a bit too poppy for a band like Papa Roach, who can’t really pull off great pop, specially with the same generic, broad lyrics as e’erywhere else in this album. The return o’ the rippity rapping doesn’t help: when Jacoby’s rapping worked — if we allow ourselves to entertain the idea that it e’er worked — ’twas giving off this groddy, scuzzy feel. That was why they were called “Papa Roach”. Now this album has none o’ that, which makes the name “Papa Roach” not fit well here. For as much as people rag on how bad rap metal is, I can tell you, rap alt rock is a far worse idea.

But the lyrics here aren’t just broad, but flat-out terrible. E’en by Roach standards, the raps make Thousand Year Krutch sound like Linkin Park in comparison; not only are there 2 lines that rhyme “¿What’s the deal, girl?” & “Tearing up each other’s world”, which is trite as all hell, but then these are followed by, “We should be in harmony, boy & girl”, rhyming with the 1st word again! I know there aren’t a lot o’ good words that rhyme with “girl”; but none o’ these lines were good, anyway, so just throw them all out. & yet none o’ the other lines are much better.

The verses are arguably worse, as they are sung in such a clunky, stop-&-go way as if a robot is trying to describe heart break, with lines in stiff perfect trochee like “WILL this BE an AMPuTAtion” or clinical lines like “this situation leads to agitation”. Yes, romantic turmoil does in fact lead to some sort o’ “agitation”. There’s particularly nasty — & not in a good way — enjambment with the lines, “but I hesitate / to tell her I hate / this relationship…”; & after that awkward rhyme in the middle o’ a sentence, the verse gives up on rhyming or e’en following the meter & just sputters out, “I want out today this is o’er”.

Grade: F

8. Singular Indestructible Droid

This is the best song in this album. Actually, in complete contrast to the sentiment I gave in the previous review, this song kind o’ blends the best elements o’ Infest & this album, having the mad science elements that sort o’ showed up on songs like “Dead Cell”, but much less cringe & replacing rapping with a mo’ effective droidlike monotone singing, with the cleaner, but mechanical-sounding guitar work. I particularly like the guttural BUH-BUH BUH-BUH. Granted, I’m not sure how I feel ’bout the weird chanting & village drums in the background. I guess the droid is attacking the village.

Grade A

9. Black Clouds

’Nother song where the monotone delivery, bland lyrics, & clean but downtuned guitar fit, since, like “Decompression Period”, it’s just ’bout being depressed. For background music songs, this 1 is 1 o’ the best on this album. Just don’t pay too much attention to the lyrics unless you like the kind o’ trite emo poetry with such similes as “tears fall like rain” & “pain strikes like lightning”. O well: this song is thematically coherent, sticking to its bad weather metaphor thruout; that’s a lyrical accomplishment for this band.

Grade B

10. Code of Energy

In contrast to the previous song’s coherency, this song is a mess that doesn’t know what tone it wants to give, jumping from announced verses, sudden shouts o’ the song title ’tween only the 2nd verse & chorus, &, in contrast, the chorus being the most monotone part, while after some amping during the bridge, there’s this bizarre spoken-word section where Jacoby in some mad scientist voice babbles some trite sci-fi shit. You’d think I’d like it, but it’s not weird ’nough to be interesting, & this song doesn’t have the energy that “Dead Cell” & “Singular Indestructible Droid” had.

Grade C

11. lovehatetragedy

We end with the worst song on the album, the title track, a song with a kooky mix o’ a lullaby-like but loud verses followed by an annoying nursery-rhyme-like chorus going “traaageeeedeeee”, & then the 2nd chorus is followed by sudden clanging announcing & shouting, & then this perishing, higher-pitch version o’ “traaageeedeee”, & then after the final chorus we get 1 final “¡TRAGEDEDE! ¡TRAGEDEDE!”. E’erything sounds so thudding & loud but not exciting, specially when this song is s’posed to be ’bout love, but with lyrics as awkward & generic that it, like “She Loves Me Not”, altogether sounds like it’s from the perspective o’ a robot who has only briefly heard rumors o’ this “love” thing. Only by reading the linear notes today have I realized that apparently there’s a war that brought the singer & some other person together, but that’s ’cause it’s briefly hinted @ in 2 lines, while most o’ the song is just repeating the word “tragedy” o’er & o’er.

Grade F

Bonus: 12. Gouge Away

¡Wow, this song’s very good! ¡It’s amazing how Jacoby’s lyricism totally improved so much, with lyrics that have that creative & mysterious imagery that early alt rock bands were known for!

O, wait, that’s ’cause this is a cover o’ a Pixies song. It’s certainly a competent rendition, — no Wes Scantlin squeeling out “About a Girl” like a dying donkey or MGK belting out “Arials” like a 10-year-ol’ angry that his mom took ’way his Switch energy. Granted, Jacoby tries a bit too hard while singing this song: a big point o’ this song, & the Pixies in general, is their mo’ laid-back vibe. This rendition doesn’t stray too far from that, — they could’ve done far worse — but it does lack some o’ the charm o’ the original. For instance, Jacoby’s plainer “doo-doo-doos” aren’t nearly as good as CMKTIV’s warm hums.

Grade B

Bonus: 13. Never Said It

I only reviewed the bonus songs so I could make the jokes ’bout the Pixies cover, but by doing so, I feel obligated to also review the other bonus song, since it’d be weird to just review 1 o’ the 2 bonus songs ’stead o’ either neither or both. All I can say ’bout this song is that it certainly exists.

Grade C

Final Verdict

Save for 2 terrible songs, I still stand by this being a solid album to listen to in the background. Tho not as memorable or interesting as Infest, it’s mo’ listenable unironically — tho it’s not nearly as good as Disturbed’s Believe.

Final Grade: C

To make up for this low-key review, I promise I will do Papa Roach’s far crazier Potatoes for Christmas — I swear that’s a real album — next December.

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