Review Summary: Flaws aside, Still Sucks delivers exactly what you'd expect from the band.
What a journey it has been getting to this moment. I’m still fighting the urge to pinch myself, just to check I don’t wake up from a cruel feint life is playing on me. This level of hype may come as a surprise to you – after all, this isn’t Tool’s
Fear Inoculum, Rammstein’s
Rammstein, or Godflesh’s
A World Lit Only by Fire. No, this is a new Limp Bizkit album. A record fans have waited ten long years to hear. Why is such hype deserved for a dude-bro nu-metal band that lost their dominating grip on the world twenty years ago? Well, for me, it comes from the fact that 2011’s
Gold Cobra is unironically genius. The album was a real turning point for the band, one that had their production, style and creative chops honed in with pinpoint precision. At the time, I enjoyed the album quite a bit, but over the years I’ve grown to realise
Gold Cobra is a real triumph. It’s an album that embodies all of Limp Bizkit’s (in)famous tropes, but it does so with prudence, nous, and experience – creating the definitive Limp Bizkit experience and one that feels incredibly mature and well-executed in hindsight.
Yet, the brilliance of this new version of Limp Bizkit came, not from the quality of the album’s songwriting, but from the band’s meta proclivities. Indeed, in their earlier years there was a boisterous, petty indignation manifesting itself within the band – egos would take over, and a self-seriousness could be heard in their music despite, lyrically, being aimed at the lowest common denominator – but by 2011, all of that tanked-up masculinity had faded away, and all that was left for the album was a group of people making outright, gloriously enjoyable music that made fun of themselves as much as it did the band’s detractors. Since
Gold Cobra, we’ve been patiently waiting for the elusive and enigmatic
Stampede of the Disco Elephants, which has been in production hell since 2012. In the past, Wes Borland has stated in interviews that the music was recorded years ago and the delays came from Durst being continuously unhappy with the quality of his contributions.
Roll the clocks forwards to present day, Halloween 2021, and I can honestly say I haven’t been this excited for a record in a long time. The cavalier handling of the album from their end has done little to detract the tangible hype this thirty-something-year-old fan (like many others) has for it, but it is indicative of where Limp Bizkit’s headspace is at these days. The members’ age and their self-awareness has softened the obnoxious overtones of their adolescence, and the ability to poke fun at themselves in this way is an image they’ve been chipping away at for over a decade now – demonstrably so when you look at their live shows. It’s endearing in all honesty, and it feels like it’s firmly planted in every aspect of the band’s imagery and sound. Yet, I feel like Limp Bizkit undersell themselves somewhat; there’s a reason why they’ve endured this long where so many others have faded into obscurity, and it’s down to one thing: the music is so goddamn fun to listen to.
So with that, the three-dollar question is simple: does
Still Sucks bring the riff, and is it fun to listen to? On the whole, the record is fun, concise and, musically, an absolute blast to listen to at times, but it’s hard to shake the feeling the entire album is a shade half-baked and lacking in substantial content (which is completely ironic given the time it’s had to fester in the oven).
Still Sucks contains twelve tracks that clock in at just over thirty-two minutes, with an average run time sitting at about two-and-a-half minutes. The record detonates right out of the gates with “Out of Style”, “Dirty Rotten Bizkit” and “Dad Vibes” delivering classic, crunchy, syncopated grooves under Borland’s multi-faceted and expressive elasticated riffs, while Durst grips the music with his tight flows. This is then given a cherry on top for fans with the wonderful Cypress Hill-esque “Turn It Up, Bitch”, with its descending bassline and reposed flow.
So far so good, right? Unfortunately, from here the results are mixed. The biggest issues I have with
Still Sucks is with the aforementioned run time which causes problems with the cohesion, and its inability to stop and savour what is being created. If you include the bonus tracks on
Gold Cobra, the album is nearly double the length of this one. This is important, because the slower numbers on that album were earned and a welcome break from the grinding riffs and high-octane energy. Here, there are nearly as many slow tunes as there are heavy ones. “Don’t Change”, “You Bring Out the Worst in Me” and “Empty Hole” are fine, but with such a lean run time it starts to affect the record’s overall energy and drift. Similarly, “Barnacle” is a weird rock song that has Durst approaching the piece with this weird Scott Weiland-esque swagger to his voice. Yet, even with this criticism set to one side, the track lacks character and doesn’t even feel like it comes from Limp Bizkit, making it the worst song on the album, by far.
Further distractions stop
Still Sucks from fully flourishing: the first two minutes of “Snacky Poo” is fun to listen to, but then you’re subjected to an additional two-minutes of this pseudo phone call conversation, where a hack mainstream music journalist asks Wes Borland prosaic questions, with Borland giving out one-worded answers. This was mildly amusing the first time, but after repeated listens it quickly grated on me and more importantly, grinded the momentum to a halt. Thankfully, “Goodbye”’s bouncy acoustic guitar and upbeat electronics made up for this blunder and ended the album on a very positive note. It’s not all doom and gloom though, “Pill Popper” is a skull-crushing monster of a track that brings out some of the heaviest sounds the band has ever made, and “Love the Hate” is a fun tongue-in-cheek dialogue that pokes fun at the band’s long-standing haters, as well as the ones who view the band as a guilty pleasure.
Overall,
Still Sucks transfers over the energy and fun from its predecessor, but at just over thirty minutes in length, they were left with very little room for errors, and unfortunately here, there are some pretty glaring ones. The album just doesn’t have the time needed to justify all of those slower tracks – despite them being okay songs – and the arbitrary artistic choices tend to procrastinate and delay what works so frigging well here. Still, while it’s not quite what I had hoped for, it’s a fun little album that retains what the band have always done so well. Pernicious decisions aside, if you get what this band does, you’ll have a good ol’ time with this album. With the exception of “Barnacle”, I can see myself enjoying this quite a bit. I can’t see it having the delayed appreciation I have for
Gold Cobra, but if nothing else, it’s a decent addition to their discography, and I’m just glad to see the band releasing new music again.
