Static-X : Start A War
Static-X is an American Industrial Metal band that formed in 1994, and Start a War is their forth actual album they have released. Wayne Static is the founder and front man of the band. Ken Jay also founded the band, but left the band before their third album Shadow Zone due to “political differences”. Nick Oshiro replaced Ken as the drummer and is originally from Seether. Koichi Oshiro is the original guitarist but left the band and then came back after guitarist Tripp Eisen met with criminal charges. Tony Campos is the original bassist and backing vocalist.
The vocals on here are an excellent mix of clear singing and screaming. The screaming on here is well done and you can understand it mostly. Wayne likes to whisper on some songs, including
The Enemy and title track
Start a War. The guitar, bass, and drums all go well together throughout the album. The drumming for the most part remains tight, and helps the instruments, and vocals flow smoothly along. The song
Start a War is a good example of that with good fills, and regular drumming for the whole song. The guitars for the most part are power chords that are very heavy for the whole album. However, the bass for the most part is fairly dead for the whole album only having a couple lines to be able to distinguish itself from the guitars.
The Enemy is my second favorite song on the album with good drumming, nice lyrics and just a good overall song structure.
Dirthouse is my favorite song on the album and is also the second single with a fantastic hook coming in at 0:54 with Wayne screaming “Go, Go, Go. Pick up the pieces I wanna call this my home. Go, go, go. Pick up the pieces, I’ve got some pain of my own”.
I Want To ***ing Break It starts off weird with a bouncy carnival sample, and goes into some angry lyrics.
“They can’t take me outside. They can’t take me down. They can’t take my thoughts ‘cause I will smash their face into the ground”.
My Damnation is about the blandest track for the album. The effects used when Wayne and Tony sing are very good, but everything else about the song seems bland. At one point Wayne whispers
“Always the same” and I have to agree with that for this song. For some reason I also get a headache whenever I listen to it.
So far it appears that Static-X have a bright future ahead of them. The first single
I’m The One has reached number 22 on the U.S. mainstream rock charts, and the sales of the album are doing well. This is a great album, but at times a few songs can become repetitive. Plus, it might also take more than one listen for some to fully appreciate a lot of the album. The fact that there are more than a couple average songs on here ways the album ranking down, but there are still some amazing songs such as
Pieces,
The Enemy, and
Dirthouse that more than make up for most of them. It’s a good Industrial Metal album, and an overall great record with a couple faults.
3.5 out of 5
