Review Summary: Can't live with em, can't live without em.
I still don't get it... but I also kinda do. Nostalgia can be a powerful, effective tool, but it can also be a smokescreen that blinds you from the very-evident, very-undeniable flaws of the things you once loved. There's been a lot of nostalgia-diving as of late - no doubt because of Quarantine giving us a lot of free time to reminisce on and re-experience the albums, games, shows, and movies we once adored. Maybe it's that strange sense of nostalgia and sentimentality that's caused the notorious, oft-derided Limp Bizkit to grow on a lot of Sputnikers and music buffs in general... but I can't say they've managed to work their magic on me. On one hand, I just don't get it - I find a lot of Bizkit's discography to be appallingly dated and simultaneously too unironic and earnest to take seriously yet
too ironic to fully, naturally enjoy. Limp Bizkit energy is funny, sure, but they never managed to be anything more than a meme band to me, to the point where I still wonder if the internet's growing love for
Gold Cobra is all a big, elaborate joke. And yet, at the same time, I don't hate them. There's something charming about their jockish energy, Wes Borland's riffs and chops are surprisingly strong, and every now and then the band manages to surprise you with a genuinely sick track. That interplay of amusing, 2000's dudebro energy and occasional musical brilliance is probably what's kept Limp Bizkit on the radar for so long, even as nu metal and rap rock died around them and took all of their contemporaries with it. Durst put it best on this very record: "can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em."
So I could honestly see why fans were so exited for
Still Sucks, Bizkit's latest release in an actual decade (something that genuinely surprises me - it certainly hadn't felt that long), even before I listened to the fleet-footed record and wound up enjoying it more than its predecessors. Yes, I actually enjoyed this record, and the answer to "why?" is a simple one: it's a wizened, experienced band of old-timers poking fun at themselves while simultaneously upholding and reveling in the sounds that put them on the map. Case in point: "Out of Style". It's an infectious opener, Bizkit delivering some crunchy riffs for the hook and cleaner, more ambient guitar melodies for the verse. It's a classic slice of rap rock that hearkens back to the (more-or-less) golden days of Limp Bizkit with enough self-awareness to keep the track from sounding too dated. "Dirty Rotten Bizkit" follows in the same vein as "Out of Style", with some classic Chocolate Starfish-era flows, a downright emo-rock chorus, and a mellow, ambient bridge that adds some intrigue and color to the overall vibe of the track.
The interplay of tongue-in-cheek antics and refined, nu-metal musicality of
Still Sucks is fun and refreshing compared to its' more tiring predecessors. The squealing police-siren guitar lines in the back of "Dad Vibes" and the gritty, industrial beat throughout contrasts nicely with Durst's flippant, wink-wink-nudge-nudge lyrics about, well, exuding dad vibes in his middle-age and poking fun at himself in the process ("Damn, this dad like a river (woo) / flow so cold, need ice to deliver"). "Turn It Up, Bitch" is speedy, tight, and enjoyable, one of Bizkit's finest cuts thus far, its crisp drum beat, chromatic upright-bass riff, and split-second SFX samples bringing to mind a blend between Cypress Hill and a cut from the Jet Set Radio OST; "Love the Hate" has these grungey downtuned guitars that provide a
Significant Other-era backing track to a silly, tongue-in-cheek spoken-track about Limp Bizkit's haters and so-bad-they're-good legacy; and "Pill Popper" is a scorcher of a track, its grimy, industrial, bass-heavy verses bringing to mind a punkish rendition of Lunatic Calm's "Leave You Far Behind". The atmospheric-yet-deranged bridge on this thing is so good you can't help but wish it was longer. In moments like these, Bizkit has you by the throat in spite of all...
And yet, like always, a handful of bad choices holds the album - and the band - back from being a Certified Classic. A couple of tracks on here are pretty good, but they come with some damaging caveats. Their cover of INXS's "Don't Change" is genuinely moving, its simple acoustic strums and moody synth pads putting a creative, wistful spin on the new wave classic, but my God, it clashes
hard with Limp Bizkit's rugged, punkish attitude - as nice as it is, "Don't Change" sticks out like a sore thumb surrounded by the album's heavier, grittier neighbors, and the fact that it's an out-of-the-blue cover adds to the filler vibe of the whole track. And as for "Snacky Poo", it's pretty god damn enjoyable for the first half of its runtime. The Jurassic 5 vibes on this track are insane: buzzing, staccato synths, swaggering drum beat, and vinyl scratches + filtered vocal samples aplenty. It's a genuinely cool, slick throwback to 90's alternative hip-hop... but! There's the second half of "Snacky Poo", when it turns from a sick beat into a god damn skit, a choice that completely annihilates the flow and enjoyability of the entire song. They should have cut the needless phone-call skit on the backend of this track entirely - it's not that funny, it's got nothing to do with the first half of the song, and it's utterly needless and superficial. The purpose of this skit's inclusion seems to be for the sole purpose of ensuring the short-and-sweet
Still Sucks reaches the thirty-minute mark.
There are moments when the album's just unsatisfying, plain and simple, and you can never tell when these low points are going to appear - there is no "dry spell" on
Still Sucks, there's just good songs and bad songs, all at completely random intervals. "You Bring Out The Worst In Me" is stepdad metalcore with mixed results - the clean, mellow verses are emotive and evocative, but the screaming, mosh-worthy chorus is honestly kind of cringe, the whole song awkwardly popping along like a less-successful version of the album's own "Pill Popper". The crappy, demo-length "Barnacle" is very Abandoned Pools-esque, especially with Durst's heavily Tommy-Walter-meets-Scott-Weiland delivery, but it's clunky, noisy, and too short to really make an impact, and "Empty Hole" is another acoustic experiment that doesn't work quite as well as the "Don't Change" cover does, circling around a pretty go-nowhere acoustic pattern and a meandering vocal melody that's bland and banal throughout, not to mention the fact that it's over so quickly you can't help but wonder why they bothered to include it at all.
Still, by the time the album caps itself off with "Goodbye" - a tropical, bright-faced 90's pop track that's nothing less than pure, unadulterated Sugar Ray - I couldn't help but be charmed by it all. I was so prepared to make a wry, snarky quip about the album's title perfectly encapsulating its overall quality, but
Still Sucks manages to defy its name and actually kinda slap in a satisfying case of reverse-psychology. This is probably Bizkit at their most likable and self-aware - it's a bunch of middle-aged dads looking back on their frat boy days and laughing at themselves while simultaneously refining the nu-metal stylings that, somehow, kept them afloat, fat, and happy long after the heat death of the rap rock genre as a whole. The highlights of this record are almost enough to convince even a cynical skeptic like me that maybe, just maybe, Limp Bizkit's worth all the retroactive hype they've been receiving as of late, that perhaps their reputation as a bunch of memelords and tryhard white boys was nothing more than vocalized backlash at the overwhelming prevalence of nu-metal and edgy 2000's rock before it died out (a hatred very similar to the post-70's fallout against disco)... but the low points of
Still Sucks and the rest of their discography as a whole reel me back in and remind me of Bizkit's overall messiness and their unshakable, somewhat-justifiable status as a warm-trash kind of band, a band that's so trashy and bombastic overall it's easy to forget the moments when they have something to prove. So, no, I still don't get it... but y'know, I also kinda do.
