Limp Bizkit was founded in 1994 by Fred Durst (Vocals) and his friend Sam Rivers (Bass). Later also John Otto (Drums), Wes Borland (Guitar) and Ex- House Of Pain member DJ Lethal (DJ) joined the band. So Limp Bizkit was complete but what they needed else was a record deal. And like destiny it wanted Fiedly – the bass player of Korn – went into Durst´s tattoo store – where he worked at that time – where Durst gave him a demo tape from his band. Fieldy was quite impressed by their music so he gave the tape to Korn´s friend and producer Ross Robinson who also liked the demotape. Through Ross they got the chance to record their first album in 1997 called “3 Dollars Bill Y´all” which seemed a commercially flop at first until they released their single “Faith” which was actually a cover of a George Michael song. But their real breakthrough was about two years later when they released Significant Other. The 3 singles off that record including “Nookie”, “Break Stuff” and “Re-Arranged” got classic status. A year later they released their third record called Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavoured Water which also was very successful. And then a tragedy happened …
…Wes Borland left the band who was a really important member for the band. Their old fans turned their back on them and the band´s reputation was broken. It took 3 whole years to release the Chocolate Starfish follow up "Results May Vary" which showed Limp Bizkit from an less metal oriented side. Circa a year after they released Results May Vary they announced that Borland rejoined the band which made me really euphoric. I speculated how they will sound now? Will they go on with the Results May Vary formula or let Results May Vary be forgotten and go on with what they stopped on Choclate Starfish? None of these two speculations arrived. They threw (almost) every trademark overboard so this was going to be different from everything they did in their past.
Line Up For “The Unquestionable Truth Part 1”:
Fred Durst – Vocals
Wes Borland – Guitar
Sam Rivers – Bass
Sammy Siegler – Drums (Replaced John Otto for beeing in rehab)
DJ Lethal – Samples, Scratches
So the day this was released I bought it and realized at first that it just contains 7 songs and was 29 minutes long what I find is a bit of a rip-off because the stores sell it to the price of an full length album. What I find quite uninspired is that each name of the tracks starts with “the” like The Propaganda, The Truth, The Key and so on. The cover of the cd was also very untipical for Limp Bizkit. But okay let´s start with the sound of the record …
Because of all those facts I was really curious what will come out of my speakers. Let´s start with Wes. Thank god that he brought the metal spirit back to the band. What he does on this record is really amazing. There was never a doubt that he´s a little genius on his instrument and this performance just underlines it. On “Results May Vary” the bass carried the songs for the most part. On this record it´s the pure opposite what means that the guitar is the star role. Wes put his effects to the site which he used in the past to make some single notes in the verses in order to riff his ass off with full distortion in the choruses. On here he plays heavy riffs in the verses like on The Story, he does stakkato riffing(!!!) like on The Propaganda or The Channel but he also stayed his roots faithfull with playing pretty nu-metalish verses like on The Truth or The Priest. His choruses are also as memorable as the verses although they´re heavier. He gives the listeners a very good chance to headbang what was never that possible on a Limp Bizkit record like on this. All in all Wes did an amazing job.
Also Fred´s singing surprised me a lot. He does not rap and sing like he used to do in the past. His “new” rapping style sounds very Zack De La Rocha (Rage Against The Machine) like and yeah … his rapping will remind you very often on Zack. I found his old style better because his striking rapping fits better to the Bizkit sound in my opinion. I also find that it´s better just to sing like you sing than to copy someone else. His singing is more like talking on this record. He shows it the best on the real emotional ballad The Surrender. That´s everything I can say about the singing. What surprised me the most on Durst were his lyrics. They got really meaningfull. He sings no more about girls, party and the typical nu-metal topics. His lyrics where about politics, the bad side of the media, society, about the Dimebagshooting and such things.
As always Sam did the bass parts. On “Results May Vary” he shined a lot because actually he and his bass lines were in the spotlight because of the lack of guitar riffs. But on this record he had to do a step aside for the all mighty Wes Borland although Sam has a lot of talent. He did a pretty decent job but is scarcely audible because of Wes´ wall of guitarsound. His most audible part is the intro of The Truth.
What many people don´t know is that Sammy Siegler plays drums on here instead of John Otto. John went in rehab during the recording sessions so Sammy was a quick replacement just to fill the hole. You can hear John at least playing drums on The Channel. I haven´t much to say about Sammy except that if I wouldn´t know that he plays on here I wouldn´t have recognized that it isn´t John. It´s hard to rate his drum work but I think that is was okay overall.
The last member what´s missed is DJ Lethal although he hasn´t a starring role on the record. I haven´t heard one single scratch or sample on the whole songs except of The Key which is the hip hop track on the record. It lasts about 2 minutes so he hadn´t much to do.
Overall it´s a great album. 29 minutes distributed on 7 songs are awaitening you. Not with the Nu-Metal stuff they did in the past what they got famous for but a raw experimental metalside that you´ve never heard on a Limp Bizkit record – except of the hip hop song The Key and the ballad The Surrender. If you´re not biased in hating Limp Bizkit you should give this a try and make your opinion about The Unquestionable Truth Part 1.
Recommended Tracks:
The Truth
The Story
The Surrender
peace
