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What goes around inevitably comes around, is anyone
that original anymore anyway? But what makes the latest
wave of US grunge so frankly confounding is that 10
years almost exactly to the day since 'Nevermind' spat
in the face of a complacent music industry and, for
better or worse, changed American rock forever, paradoxically
introducing the word angst into the wide alternative
lexicon, we seem to have learnt absolutely nothing.
Were Limp Bizkit, At The Drive In or Korn's subtle advances
really completely lost on a public that prefers style
and easy-access-emotion over substance and depth? Nothing
learnt evidently, but if one thing's been perfected
it's reference, recreation and efficiency - embodied
up to the gills on this record.
'Control', first single and initial track on the album,
is the only introduction you'll really need. It sounds
a tiny bit like 'Serve The Servants', although not that
much (be warned, this will become a recurrent feeling
throughout - 'Bring Me Down' sounds a little like STP's
'Sex Type Thing', though only a bit, to name just another
one). For a moment it sounds like it could be their
own 'Killing In The Name' with its "I can't control
you / You can't control me" mantra, but then they throw
it all away with lines like "I love the way you look
at me / I love the way you smack my ass / I love the
dirty things you do / I have control of you". Make no
mistake which level we're operating on here.
Much of the album is immediately agreeable in a Seattle
breeze in your hair, grease on your skin, fuzz-pedal
between your teeth, imagined weight of the world on
your adolescent shoulders kinda way. Which is fine if
you have no intention of getting under its skin and/or
don't own much of the genres output circa '91. It has
it's moments, the airy staccato verse of 'Blurry' (surely
some mistake, it sounds like Stone Temple Pilots) for
instance or 'She Fucking Hates Me' just because in a
funny way it sounds a bit like Ugly Kid Joe. The main
problem is he can't seem to decide whether he's trying
to be Layne Staley or Kurt Cobain though compared to
their brutish and shallow live show there is layering
a plenty here. For the most part however it is all surface
and no feeling.
Artist
site - www.puddleofmudd.com
Review by James Berry for Crud Magazinel©
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