Review Summary: Papa Roach have mastered a never ending generation of cliché’s, with good sound, raw material, and substantial yet bizarre lyrics.
Papa Roach, formed in 1993 in Vacaville, California have gone to impose upon the mainstream society a much more raw side to the hard rock scene implanted into people’s minds being right at the start of the new century. New ideas, new impressions, new cultures, new everything is being created to prepare for a grand 21st century. Not the least of these influences has been the substantial hard rock band Papa Roach. Their determination to shape the new era of music has had a monumental approach on the musical industry. The sheer raw power these young men have profoundly accepted as their own has infested the minds of millions, and in only a short amount of time. With their EP's 'Potatoes for Christmas', and 'Old Friends From Young Years', they have undoubtedly prepared for an assault that could've never been foreseen by anybody just taking a stroll through the enormous glance of change the new world was proposing.
For Papa Roach, the trials presented have ultimately shaped their destiny, and considering they passed nearly all of them, their record label, their studio, had influences written all over. Taking into consideration the mass amount of fury presented in this, the overall subject of this has been seen many times before. The entire teen angst concept in here really tends to appeal to a broader audience, all justified less than one aspect: Papa Roach at this point, are actually still young enough to get away with this basic image. Unlike many other groups prior to the century, their image has been shattered just because they were too old to get any kind of publicity with the particular concept.
Papa Roach have constructed a wondrous work here. The actual sound of this album is a cross between hard rock, and a hip-hop style of vocals, with a trip-hoppy kind of beat to it. The feel for this album is constantly making a consistency change to it, and the trade-offs to make this happen have received amazing amounts of gratitude. Imposing upon their audience the idea of mental domination, their first track called 'Infest', sneaks up on you a little, and you kind of get a feel for the groups sound as soon as the guitars start to kick in. Usually, songs don’t get to sound this gloomy in the beginning, and it doesn’t take long for the group to employ their heavier side into this album.
'Last Resort', the first hit single on this album, has seen major radio appearances all over, and is held as one of, if the most, important song of the band. This is also the first time in the album we get a real feel for the hip-hop style Papa Roach like to expose in a lot of their early content. Amazing riffs take the background, and the drums, so simply, yet so unique, expose an amazingly catchy beat. You really can’t help but to just move your body in some way to press along with the amazing beats. the tag along with the songs really keep you occupied, at least until the rawness kicks in. 'Dead Cell' and 'Snakes', though the songs are a bit far apart, really exemplify that nu-metal sound. The power of these songs, though not completely significant and rather a cliché honestly, still manages to keep your ears happy.
Some songs in this album have made a huge trade-off that hasn’t been seen much in the past. Songs like 'Between Angels and Insects', and 'Thrown Away' has arguably made a fantastic debut appearance in this album, and wouldn’t have worked anywhere else. These songs bash the heads of the society they speak to. The overwrought, disgusting, and just plain wretched "spoiled" society, really takes a hit in the groin with these tracks. And the same aspects remain the same in these songs as well, most especially the beats, but also the heavy guitar riffs, and the hard to recognize bass.
The vocals in this album have taken the same assault seen before. Don’t get me wrong, Jacoby can sing, but his lyrics don’t necessarily do the same amount of justice the actual "sound" of the album does. Lyrics along the angst side of the generation have been excavated before, and at some points in the album, like 'Infest', the lyrics make no sense whatsoever. But, again, some tracks usually pick up the slack presented in other points of the album where the pace seems to be completely dropped off. But otherwise, a decent appearance to fall back on.
The debut appearance for Papa Roach has officially shown a somewhat cliché appearance. But on the other hand, Papa Roach seem to master their image, and distort it with a major variety of genres that do well in putting up at least a new sound that compliment this over played style of theirs. This was a fair performance by the band, and it seems that Papa Roach won’t abandon their image before long, till new influences come along anyway. And the entire band will someday realize that their time has come, like all other bands must face, and maybe try to make another switch-up that'll keep the audience active. Until then, well, who knows? Enjoying the record for now is simple enough.
