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Album Review
by SashaS
18-6-2002
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| Papa Roach's 'LoveHateTragedy' |
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Papa Roach: 'LoveHateTragedy'
(Dreamworks)
Papa Roach’s new album dispels some clouds of doubt
While Linkin Park are refashioning their debut CD ‘Hybrid Theory’ into a remixed entity ‘Reanimation’ to shift few more units – increasing one’s dubiety about their creativity – Papa Roach have moved on… It’s not only that the singer, Gross Dick, has reverted to his given name, Jacoby Shaddix (it sounds more pseudo than the original nom-de-rocque), but the band has effectively abandoned ‘nu-metal’ pastures.
‘LoveHateTragedy’ deals with the similar subjects as the ‘Infested’ disc but the sonic picture has shifted from the ‘nu-skool’ back to some rockingly traditional standard. That doesn’t mean their tonal quality has jumped way up as the band remains around their mark on a valu-o-meter. In two years since the breakthrough the band’s had to ‘enjoy’ and deal with its fame and success.
And their way has been… patchy. ‘M80 (Explosive Energy Movement)’ is a huge track that hits your senses ferociously. But thence, it is a bit of a letdown, like further destroying of one and search for alternative identity… One thing that should be praised is the honesty of lyrics: Shaddix doesn’t hold anything back and performs a self-soul surgery all the way through.
Openness is all-fine at this emo-age but it could become an issue in a long run as any amount of secrecy’s never killed a cat. (More like prolonging a career – ask Ozzy.) Still, this is the way of Shaddix in the post-success and he disembowels his marriage (‘She Loves Me Not’), depicts sorrow over his dog’s death (‘Walking Through Barbed Wire’), fame-game pain… If you don’t like it, ditch it, don’t bitch it!
There are several excellent tracks though: alongside the opening cut, we get a riff-luscious ‘Life Is A Bullet’, the humongously anthemic ‘Decompression Period’ and darkly-dynamic ‘Black Clouds’, demonstrating that Shaddix and the boys are capable of stretching toward maturity. The album’s closer is the title song that doesn’t put an exclamation mark on the proceeding. On the balance…
If you like your music – anyway, at all – this fits the poster.
7/10
SashaS
18-6-2002
Papa Roach’s album ‘LoveHateTragedy’ is released 17 June 2002 on Dreamworks/Universal
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