Review Summary: Mushroomhead's weakest effort.
Mushroomhead was, and always will be compared to the mallcore faggots known as Slipknot, much to the chagrin of their many fans who know for a fact that they were the ones donning ridiculous masks first. Bear in mind that they have been labelled Nu metal, much to their detriment, their 'metal-ness' being kept afloat only by the fact that they are still not quite in the mainstream.
Yet.
This album marks the final nail in the coffin for Mushroomhead, and this is proven by the pseudo-techno influences, chugging three chord riffs, and emo vocals that plague the majority of the songs.
Don't get me wrong though, I enjoyed their previous releases. I would even say I was a fan back when Jason Popson was still in the band. They were a darkly industrial, post apocalyptic mid-speed band with an ear for keyboard abuse and eclectic/perverse vocals courtesy of Jeffery Nothing. It was a good time, and I knew it was too good to last. This is what happens when you expose MTV to a Nu Metal band with a good chunk of decency.
The single, 'Simple Survival' was a mediocre track, but it was an interesting misdirection of sorts, for this track fooled me into thinking that Mushroomhead had turned into a heavier version of The Cure. I went ahead and brought the CD, and....Twelve Hundred pops up. It's not a bad track, but right off the bat I knew something was horribly wrong. I wondered, 'Where are the apocalyptic and brooding undertones. The ATMOSPHERE?' For me, the selling point of Mushroomhead is their atmosphere- the sickly bluesy vocals of Jeffery Nothing coupled with keyboard overuse that would make Dream Theater blush along with the growled freestyled raps of J Mann....those were the days.....anyways, back on track. The third track Damage Done is where the trouble begins. Dear Lord, why did they eschew their symphonic element? They just sounded like a really bad Coal Chamber in this piece. I found my finger hovering over the skip button at the two minute mark before giving into temptation and ending the song's misery.
The fourth track Save Us is an overly melodramatic pseudo ballad sounding like Vermillion by Slipknot gone completely off. It just gets worse from there. The track Tattoo is THE most pointless song in the history of the universe. If they wanted to make a repetitive minimalist track, they should leave it to experts like Burzum, but this song....ugh....it sounds like Hatebreed stumbling out of a hospital ward with a fresh lobotomy. Enough said. Moving on.
Erase the Doubt is a poor and overdrawn impression of Skinny Puppy, while the next track Burn is simply a replica of Tattoo, albeit with a little more trappings. I was rather surprised when I got the next track though, as Just Pretending sounded like the direction they were SUPPOSED to take when they fooled me with Simple Survival. The leading hook is strangely sinister in a smiling John Wayne Gacy sort of way, and Waylon really outdoes himself on this one, proving that he has a set of pipes that could match J Mann's anyday. The Need is an okay song, mostly led along by the reins with a tinkly piano lead. Cut Me is another pleasant surprise, oozing and drawling it's way through with sludge filled riffs and another nice performance from Waylon.
However, Mushroomhead shot my hopes down yet again with a pointless Slipknot bashing slow gallop of a track known as The Fallen. It is then followed by the pointless acoustic outro Embrace the Ending, which painfully shows how much vocal coaching Jeffery Nothing needs.
In a nutshell, the album is Two Face. Buy the better tracks of the album and pretend that Mushroomhead are not on the brink of losing their integrity, or listen to the entire album and nod to yourself in grim certainty that Mushroomhead is contemplating stepping into the pool of traditional dumbed down MTV Nu Metal. Hopefully they realized their mistake with the blacklisted songs I mentioned and will go back to playing atmospheric full-of-surprises Mushroomhead. In the meantime, I will sit back and enjoy their previous two albums and pretend this never happened.
