Review Summary: AKA 1000 Horse Poo
In the USA Godsmack are treated as kings. The arena slaying quartet are Grammy nominating colossuses with gold and platinum number one albums, 3 consecutively topped the charts. But the USA isn’t everything; sorry patriots. Only 2 dates out of a ten year touring schedule are outside of America and Canada. Sure, their music is accepted in other countries- a band as popular as them in the USA is bound to spread word across oceans but 20 years on and the Alice In Chains riffs are still watered down into a piss-worthy semblance.
For an album entitled 1000 Horse-Power, it’s full of faults and stalls and never really gets to fifth gear. This is predominantly because of vocalist Sully Erna’s unbearably clichéd lyrics. The sheer title of Something Different alone is contradictory to the song itself, it sounds nothing different to anything they’ve released in their career and Sully’s vocals barely vary. But wait, because it’s an attempt at a ballad there’s some violins. There’s no need for them, they’re just sort of there-kind of like the entire album. Locked And Loaded follows the cliché of ‘I’m-tired-of-your-***-and-I’m-going-to-stand-up-to-you’ that only Hatebreed can get away with. Juvenile lyrics such as the 13 year old child inspiring “I’ll break your face” are pathetic as an affronting attitude. So take that higher authority! 50% of the title track is Sully shouting to “Turn that *** up louder”. He’s right about the *** but we’ll keep the volume level just where it is thanks.
Now for the music itself: Godsmack can undeniably create stadium anthems-they may not be to everyone’s tastes but they’re catchy and memorable. Perhaps this is true only on previous albums because on 1000hp there are no annoyingly catchy bits. The closest would be FML but it’s entirely forgettable. I Don’t Belong is also just as uninspired. The reason for this is the bland nature of the songs: yes Sully; we know the world is not all black and white, yes Sully that must be terrible for you. The music is just as unfocused due to the spotlight being pinned on their petite vocalist. What’s Next sounds like any song off of their Faceless album but the snail pace chugs from both bass (Robbie Merrill) and guitarist (Tony Rombola) just drone on uncoordinatedly. At the end of the song there are crashes of cymbals from Shannon Larkin which irksomely trick you into thinking the song is over. This is filler music, let alone filler songs.
There are a small handful of good grooves on this album but unfortunately they only last a few passing moments on each song. Generation Day has a good bounce but it’s ruined by overproduced vocals to create an airy affect. It’s different but that doesn’t automatically make it good. Turning To Stone has a cool sensitive melody that also sounds like a Tool intro. Wait; hang on, no it can’t be... It IS a Tool intro. This track directly rip offs Tool’s majestic Lateralus. Everything is a concrete copy- the speed, tuning, melody and all. In a way this showcases just how little fuel Godsmack have put into 1000hp, clearly they’ve ditched the car and just hitchhiked from better bands.
