Godsmack
Godsmack

Release Date: 1998 | Tracklist

Godsmack. In the late 90's, Godsmack was just another band trying to get known. Well, when Godsmack dropped Whatever, the first single from their self-titled album, they got what they were looking for, soon obtaining mainstream popularity in the genre of hard rock quickly with Whatever and smash hit Keep Away. It's obvious that the band was majorly influenced by that of Alice In Chains, with guitar solos in 90% of only one single album. It's also said that Godsmack was influenced by Metallica, in terms of being "in your face", if you will. What's quite humorous about these influences is the fact that frontman Sully Erna sounds just like what would happen if Alice In Chains frontman Layne Staley was mixed with Metallica's James Hetfield. Why? As previously stated in one of the Faceless reviews on Sputnik, Sully shows traits of both vocalists: the "whiney depressed" tone, a la Layne Staley, and the "aggressive yell in your face" style of James Hetfield into one vocal.

Nonetheless, this obvious mixing of vocals manages to be overshadowed with Sully's ability to deliver catchy hooks and choruses into Godsmack's mainstream debut, such case as in Keep Away, Whatever, and Bad Religion. In addition to these catchy lyrics, Sully manages to create good lyrical structure in terms of verses, never with one song looking familiar to the other in terms of structure, but the problem with these structures lies within the choruses. As catchy as the choruses may be, the problem with these choruses is that they mainly consist of only two to four lines, usually sung twice on average. In other words, the choruses are nothing surprising: they're something to be expected from Godsmack. Furthermore, Sully's lyrics deal with the same thing over and over again, primarily speaking of hate for a person, telling the person to keep their distance from Sully(Keep Away, Whatever, Time Bomb), and threats of what Sully says he's going to do to a person(Stress, Get Up, Get Out!).

While Sully has mixed results in terms of being a lyricist, guitarist Tony Rambola is one of, if not the main driving forces behind Godsmack's success. If it wasn't obvious enough that Godsmack was influenced by Alice in Chains, just take a listen to Tony's playing style, and notice how Tony contributes guitar solos to almost each and every song on not only the first album, but each album to come later on in the future for the soon-to-be world's most successful Alice in Chains tribute band. Like Alice In Chains though, Tony is able to deliver enjoyable solos. Cases in point: Keep Away and Immune. However, the problem with Tony Rambola in this album is the fact that over 80% of the entire album fails to break away from their main riffing except for in the solos. Bad Religion is an example of this, using the same D chord over and over again. Instrumental Someone In London would have been one of those opportunities that Tony could have taken advantage of in terms of unleashing a two minute solo, but this doesn't happen. Someone In London is the same riffing over and over, never even attempting to change the riffing and go into a good solo.

The thing that I can't seem to shake that I can actually dig about Godsmack is the existence in Robbie Merrill's bass. Robbie's bass is actually what gives the band life; you can hear it clearly even with Tony and sometimes Sully's combined riffing. Robbie even gets the spotlight with his bass in the tribal closer Voodoo, delivering a low, haunting bassline. Even Tommy Stewart does give something to remember him by, standing out in instrumental Someone in London. There really isn't nothing else to say about Tommy Stewart, seeing as the only moment that seems memorable from Tommy is Someone in London.

So why a 2.5? Well, while you have Godsmack's debut appearing to be enjoyable upon first listen, it isn't until you take one good listen into the album to see what's really wrong. Sully delivers catchy and relevant lyrics, yet the structures in his choruses are nothing surprising, consisting of the same number of lines, followed by a repeat of the same lines. Tony's guitar work is nothing impressive, with the only eye catching fact about his guitar playing would be his soloing, while overall, his diversity when it comes to straying away from a song's main riffing is seldom. Tommy manages to make his mark with his drumming in Someone in London, yet he does not manage to catch the listener's attention through the other tracks. However, with surprising existence found in Robbie's bass, he manages to give the album some brownie points, but because of the other flaws overshadowing the positives, and because of the major repetitiveness and rehashing of the same song topics, this lowers the musical value of this so-so release. In the future, Awake would manage to turn this around somewhat, allowing Godsmack to mature musically, but Faceless and IV would end up being where Godsmack hits the major bump in the road. I wouldn't recommend picking this album up, but I will say that it does deserve a good listen or two.

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3.2 good

Rank: #84 for 1998