Review Summary: Limp Bizkit meets every other nu-metal band in this rather safe and generic, but very energetic and hook filled album.
As most music fans know, nu-metal was all the rage in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. Limp Bizkit and Korn were two of the most popular groups in all of North America, and their success spawned a legion of similar sounding, and many successful bands. Of course, like all fads, nu-metal died within the blink of an eye (though Linkin Park is still popular as far as I can tell).
I think a lot of people give nu-metal a really harder time than it deserves. Obviously some bands deserve derision, but many times you can hear real, genuine talent in those early nu-metal albums.
That brings me to Germany’s 4Lyn, who were obviously ready to capitalize on Limp Bizkit’s success with the release of their self-titled debut in 2002. Personally, this is a frustrating, but decent album for me, and I’ll explain why.
4Lyn, the album, is essentially a rap-rock record with a few twists amongst its 15 tracks. Some songs are straight up rap rock, some are (painfully) straight up rap, but for the most part the album is an aggressive, youthful nu-metal record that I’m personally surprised never blasted off into popularity in 2002. Plenty of chunky, down tuned riffs, rapped, cleanly sung and screamed vocals, and lot’s of “*** you world” lyrics.
I want to first give kudos to the band for their skills on this album. When you turn over the CD case you can see 4 pictures of each band member, and they must look no older than 18 years old. But the amount of effort they put into playing these songs is pretty impressive, especially the guitar playing. There’s no doubt about it- this is testosterone fueled rock dialed up to 11. You can just picture each band member rocking the hell out as they were recording this CD, and as someone who’s seen the band live, they put everything they’ve got into their live shows. Tag to that strong hooks in many of the songs and great, youthful vocals from singer Braz who can scream with the best of them (in the nu-metal range, of course!), and you should have the perfect soundtrack for wrecking things in your room or speeding down the freeway while your brain is turned off.
All is not well in 4Lyn land though. The lyrics. I don’t even know how to convey how awful, painful, and cringe-inducing the lyrics are. For the most part, it’s tough guy posturing usually about being an individual, girls, and getting drunk, but it’s done in such an inane way with made up slang to appeal to the kiddies. It’s already dated the album terribly, and when Braz sings the lyrics in a faux-reggae style above metallic guitars (‘Pure’), you begin to wonder what the hell is going on. A lot of it doesn’t even make sense at all. Example: “From A to Izzard/Come on check out this art!/You air headed assholes/Stop trying to piss us off/For examples you muthafukkas that try to hit my ducats/Four cornered caught you in a bad one”.
Despite the crappy lyrics, the first 5 songs on this album are fantastic, especially if you dig on nu-metal. Track 3, “Whoo!”, sounds so much like early Limp Bizkit it’s eerie. But when the band decides to switch things up musically, the album starts to fly off the rails. I have to give credit to 4Lyn for wanting to experiment musically, but the actual result, well, it’s practically a failure and really bogs the album down. The slow tropical beat of ‘Bahama Mama’ sounds almost like the worst of 311 balladry, and ‘Down & Out Parts 1 & 2’ is puke-inducing white boy rap at its worst (don’t worry, it’s better than anything Fred Durst has done). Braz is a good vocalist, he screams fairly well and his voice has a slightly nasal quality that helps it stand out. But rapping… no, just… no. Besides, this is a 15 track album so it’s quite lengthy. A good solid trimming of the “experimental” (loose term) songs would’ve helped immensely.
But for anyone who’s had a soft spot for nu-metal, or are just looking for dumb, loud, fast hard rock music, or between the ages of 15-20 (heh), 4Lyn is certainly worth checking out. In the genre that they belong to, this album certainly has its fair share of highlights, and while they’re not the best at what they do, they’re far from the worst. Thankfully, the band improved from this debut album (although the follow up, Neon, is terrible) and eventually shed all nu-metal traces from their sound to become a straight up hard rock band, and blossomed as really strong songwriters.
Throw it in, turn your brain off, and start to jump up and down like crazy again.
