Review Summary: An overly revisionised album which isn't horrible, it's just mediocre.
When Limp Bizkit came onto the scene in 1997, they rode on the recently unearthed market which was angsty teenagers, aiding in the growth and dissemination of what would become nu metal. In retrospect, all musicians with traces of credibility find both the genre and Limp Bizkit, as a whole, abhorrent in what I think is an overly revisionist opinion. This negative nostalgia has been only worsened by Limp Bizkit's later releases and the antics of their lead singer Fred Durst, now one of the most reviled men on the planet. So I'm setting all that aside and looking at this album for what it is, a decent rap metal release with some traces of creativity and energy. Not great, but not deserving of the complete discredit it is often regarded with today.
What makes this album decent in comparison to Limp Bizkit's other releases is the bands initial reluctance to enter into the world of ballads and Fred's "singing", of which the closest you'll get is "Sour", which apart from some interesting guitar work is a poor song, showing the band's limitations. The album mainly comprises of fast paced songs with rap and bass driven verses and built up screaming with guitar walls at chorus and breakdown. Whilst formulaic, the songs differentiate just enough to stop them blending together and the musicianship, whilst rarely anything past standard, isn't necessarily bad. Sam Rivers as bassist is consistent in his performance, never going out his way past the first string but inkeeping a grooving rhythm none the less. Wes Borland, whilst toted as an inventive guitarist, fails to display his prowess on this album, he can create an ambience and shred a riff but there's nothing in the way of innovation or technicality. An under appreciated member, John Otto, remains as such, as what is otherwise quality drumming is masked in a sometimes unclean mish mash of instruments in breakdowns and choruses.
Which brings us to Fred Durst and you know what, putting aside the fact the man is a complete idiot, I can tolerate him on this album. The rapping, whilst never overstepping itself, can keep the beat and it does what the album intends, it builds you up to the chorus and the boom of noise, a cue for Limp Bizkit's target audience to "get the **** up". This leads us to believe the band shouldn't ever have a song with near full focus on rapping or you get "Indigo Flow", one of the worst tracks on the album. Fred's screams have a decent raw emotion and his shift between vocal media's is a practiced one, we once again however never see Fred exploring much of a vocal range. The lyrics are rife with infamous hip hop phrases which people are right to scoff at and are rarely set into anything other then the stereotypical "I have problems and I'm angry about them" mind set, it's one dimensional but the flow of the song can usually make them tolerable, though make no mistake it's a weak point.
All of these restrictions may make the band sound one track oriented and I think that's a just description. Where the band go wrong is when they tried to branch out without the experience or skill to do so and we're led to albums like Results May Vary. Experiments into other areas are seen on the album but unfortunately, I'm not rewarding effort when the end product never ends well. "Everything" was an unimaginative following of the "do an ending track which is very long and barely a song" and is just a strange, spaced out and incoherent mash of sounds in an try too hard attempt at epic. "Intro" is equally pretentious with a poor attempt at some abstract meaningful message. However, Limp Bizkit does the aforementioned "one track" well and though they've similar musicianship and formula, "Pollution" "Counterfeit" "Stuck" and "Leech" are all decent songs. They're stereotypes in audio, they lack imagination but ultimately they do what they set out to do, encapsulate some energy and anger so some fifteen year old can punch a wall at the chorus.
