Review Summary: They've gone from wearing face paint to looking like Aliens to looking just like...another stereotypical corporate "metal" band, how fitting.
Mudvayne have always stood out from other nu-metal bands due to each band members high level of technical proficiency in their instruments. Bassist Ryan Martinie won over legions of bassists with his cool licks thrown in here and there. That coupled with Matthew McDonough odd time signatures and Chad Gray's unpredictable aggressive and at times melodic vocals created their own unique sound.
Their debut album L.D. 50 is highly regarded as a nu-metal classic on these forums. As you know, their follow up The End Of All Things To Come failed to live up to the standards which their debut set and Lost and Found again falls short.
What I like about the album:
Mudvayne certainly know how to pick their singles to exploit commercial success. I kid you not, some of the songs here are VERY catchy.
Happy? reaching #1 on the Mainstream Rock charts was no fluke. Starting off with that riff you've probably heard 5 dozen times before and heading into the main verses "Tear me from the bone, does it make you happy now?" despite how silly some of the lines may sound they go well with the song.
Determined is 2.5 minutes of pure relentless anger and profanities here and there which would appeal to most angry 13 year olds. Chad Gray doesn't give you a single second to breathe on this track. The best track on this album by far and the only one (possibly) that would match the standards set by L.D. 50.
Forget To Remember is another entertaining track starting off with some simple but solid power chords from Tribbett. The soft verse-loud chorus structure here works very well despite being quite repetitive.
Fall Into Sleep is the most unique song on this album starting off with some excellent melodic singing from the Kud. Tribbett's guitar compliments Chad's particularly well and give the song an emotional feel.
Chad doesn't scream as much as he did on their previous albums however overall, he still does an excellent job with the vocals.
What I did not like about the album:
Songs like
Choices,
Pulling The String and
TV Radio are a total snooze-fest and completely forgettable. Chad's singing is extremely poor particular on the latter song while the other 3 do a half assed attempt at being a band.
As mentioned in my introduction, Martinie is an excellent and extremely talented bassist. On this album however, there is a DISGRACEFUL lack of bass throughout this album. All he does is accompany the guitar lines; they would have been better off had they got that guy from Linkin Park play bass.
Tribbett has usually been the bands achilles heel even on past albums. Here again he does nothing out of the ordinary; his guitar is drop-D tuned and he mostly plays heavily recycled power chords of which more than half of the songs on the album usually start with. Songs like
Happy? and
Fall Into Sleep certainly could have used a solo to bring it to the next level unfortunately this is not to happen.
The lyrical content on most of the songs are mediocre content at best; often at times such as on
All That You Are you wouldn't know two ***s what The Kud is on about.
The most depressing thing is the band actually HAVE the talent as proven in the past to play their instruments at a high level but don't feel the urge to on this album; pretty much doing what Metallica did with Load and ReLoad.
Overall:
An average album yet entertaining at times album. If you're looking for the brilliance of L.D 50, you will be sorely disappointed. I'll still recommended it to people looking to get into "heavier" music.
They've gone from wearing face paint to looking like Aliens to looking just like...another stereotypical corporate "metal" band, how fitting.
They also seem to be lacking an overall sense of direction. Thank god for them this album sold 800,000 copies.
I give it a
3/5 overall.
Recommended songs:
Determined
Happy?
Fall Into Sleep
Forget To Remember
(basically all the singles)
Only my 3rd review on this site!
