Review Summary: Mudvayne delivers a “lethal dosage” of frenetic, psychotic, pandemonium all loosely wrapped into a “Nu-Metal” shell.
Typically, as you peruse through the genre of nu-metal, you find a lot of similar bands, with similar goals, achieving similar styles and some mainstream success. While Mudvayne is certainly no exception to this (easily the most popularized of the genre, second to only
Slipknot), once upon a time, they felt they were “textbook ****ing metal”. The previous quote is cited from Track 11 and
Severed not just illustrates the pinnacle of the instruments on the album, but accurately portrays the entire idea behind the whole album lyrically.
While some of the lyrical direction on the album is overly-pursued, there’s a certain hook to the full delivery of the band behind Chad Gray. Whether it be the sudden explosion of angst moments after a sorrowfully beautiful intro on
Nothing To Gein, or lesser heard moments such as the epic bridge section to
Pharmaecopia with its beautifully layered bass and flowing backbeat. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t faults with delivery on the album. Certain tracks, such as
Under My Skin or
Prod, seem to musically make little sense and meander aimlessly throughout.
And while one can certainly find flaws in the songs on an album that is definitely not perfect - there’s still one problem with
every single song on
L.D. 50. The guitar work is the lowest in the mix, even if Greg Tribbett’s basic riffs are best off that way. He shines very little throughout the album. Here and there he strays away from copy and paste descending/ascending bar chords and open notes, but rarely makes an impact when he doesn’t. One could even argue that, minus “solo” parts where his guitar is necessary, this album would be just as good with only the rest of the band. Even though his style hasn’t changed much over the years, his overall skill as a guitar player really shone through when his next band,
Hell Yeah, didn’t have bassist Ryan Martinie and drummer Matt McDonough saving the album. Can’t be too mean, however, as his guitar writing skills admirably set an excellent foundation for the rest of the band.
Summary:
While this album is hands-down the most creative one to come out of the Nu-Metal genre, it does suffer faults with aimless direction and unnecessary/strange transitions (See:
Nothing To Gein post-chorus verse). It’s a difficult album to listen to completely in one sit-down, but has well-placed interludes to bring some sort of stability to an otherwise wild, unstable experience. No one song on the album resembles any of the others. Highly recommended to bassist and drumming enthusiasts.
Top Tracks:
1. Severed
2. Death Blooms
3. Nothing To Gein
4. -1
5. (K)now (F)orever
6. Dig
