Review Summary: Why the hell did I even listen to this? Oh, and they rip off the song 'Lateralus'.
In my recent Clutch review of
Earth Rocker, I described a band who has stuck to their guns, kept things simple, followed a formula, and produced a series of great albums. I described a band who speaks in confidence and rules their sonic universe with a crooked grin and a swagger that would be difficult to break. I also spoke on the gulf of difference between this swagger and Tapout Tuffguy lunkheaded rock. Little did I realize I'd be speaking about the opposite side of that rock coin so soon, and here it is with longtime nu-metal leftovers Godsmack and their newest album, the comically juvenile
1000hp. The cover you see up there describes this album to T; there are no surprises at all.
Before we even get started on this review, I'd like to point out that 'Turning to Stone' on this album has a direct rip-off intro riff of Tool's song 'Lateralus'. I mean,
blatant rip-off. That right there is a display on the creative bankruptcy that permeates every corner of this band's work. That being said, there's also 'Nothing Comes Easy', which comes incredibly close to sounding like the intro for 'Orion' by Metallica. It gets worse, folks.
1000hp has Godsmack putting out 11 mid-tempo rockers of extraordinarily little variance. Each song follows a the ABABCB song structure to the point where you can guess ninety percent of the song before it happens. Now, numerous bands can do verse/chorus/verse/bridge songs and make it work, but Godsmack has dynamics so flat and uninspired that this ends up making the entire album sound like the same damn song. Once in a while they try to spice things up, like the interlude section of 'Generation Day', but
that damn thing just drones on and on and on and on...
Sully Erna, a semi-competent singer, is a terrible wordsmith. Despite all of his different approaches to the same problem, his songs are mostly about somebody else being a dick and over-baked rock clichés on how difficult life is and not belonging (There's even a song called 'I Don't Belong'), and as a real surprise there's confident Sully telling you how awesome and amazing he is and you suck for not being him. I almost had an epileptic fit when he claims he isn't going to '
burn out like a has-been old cliche', because the
entire album is cliché. It's truly terrible.
Their instrumentation is exactly the same now as it was on their debut album. If you've ever heard a Godsmack song then you know exactly the kind of music you'll find here. Even the filtered wah-wah sound from the their first album is still here in full force.
This album is just so, so damn bad.
