2004-05-16
The third millennium’s musical world belongs to nu metal.
While the last decade saw dancing and prancing musical groups, consisting of handsome young men or women, rounded up by sly businessmen in order to create sweet and simple pop music to be played around the clock on MTV, this decade belongs to metal.
It impossible to argue with the immense successes achieved by such bands as Evanescence, Linkin’ park, Korn and Limp Bizkit, and to a lesser degree, Slipknot, Machine Head and Drowning Pool, these bands conquered the charts in the US and worldwide, going straight into platinum, multie-million record sales.
While some of these bands aren’t that far from the pop idols of the prior decade, just accompanied by distorted guitars and raunchier vocalists, some of them do have a degree of quality, and Drowning Pool is such a band indeed.
The band took over the charts with their first single, Bodies, a sharp, exact monster of a song, which, once entering your head, stayed there, the album itself went on to sales of over a million and a half records.
2002 saw tragedy striking the band, when vocalist Dave Williams was found dead, it seemed that the band would cease to exist, but some hope arose when they released the title track for the Daredevil movie soundtrack, vocals handled by the legendary Rob Zombie, no less.
After finding a proper replacement in the form of Jason “gong” Jones, the band returns with their second album, Desensitized, proving that the success of their first outing was no fluke, the album, filled to the brim with short, aggressive metal, more reminiscent of American hard rock than of pop-like nu metal, is a prefect unison of the melodic and the aggressive.
Gong’s vocals share more than a passing resemblance to the vocals of the late Layne Staley, while sounding more like soil’s Ryan McComb vocals on the more aggressive bits.
The album opens with Think, a short, aggressive roar, setting the tone for the rest of the album, a good opener indeed, second track, Step Up, is also the album’s first video clip, and rightly so, fast-and-furious metallic rock, with some southern rock swagger on top, a winner.
Track four, This Life, is another strong cut, some clean guitars interwoven with distortions, bitter lyrics, giving off a Seattle feel, bring Creed to mind.
Bringing Me Down is another potential hit, short and catchy, a strong chorus, benefiting from the same crystal sharp sound as the rest of the album.
Love And War is probably my favorite track, some clean guitars and fine vocal harmonies, great song.
Killin’ Me starts off with a short tapping segment, and turns into one hard hitting bastard of a track, one of their strongest moments since Bodies.
Anyone who took a liking to their first album will not be disappointed, and new comers will find a lot to like as well, if its metal for the masses, then this is the metal id like to hear.
Alon Miasnikov
