Welcome To The Downside Explicit Lyrics, Import

I heard of this band purely by picking up a dusty, untouched record one day in my local record store, entitled "SNE - Welcome to the downside".As soon as i got home and palyed it, i was hit in the face with a mix of heavy guitars and soaring yet melodic vocals on the fantastic opening track, "15 (live my life)" and the brilliance continues with the following track "pass the power" which may take a bit more listening to really get into, and so the high standard continues until it gets to the (in my opinion) embarasingly awful track, "bring your body" that is a festering corpse of cheesey vocals and an embarasingly poor chorus. But they manage to redeem themselves with every subsequent track.I love this album and its all ive been listening to for weeks, stand out tracks in my opinion are 1, 2, 4, 5, 9 & 11. This album is for fans of drowning pool, distrurded etc. Although, if your looking for a ground breaking album by a band with new methods of making music, your sure not to find it here. This album is for people like me who are not fussed about what they're listening to as long as its enjoyable, and who like to try new bands to get away from all the mainstream.

Musically, this album is fairly standard nu-metal fare, with down-tuned guitars, staccato riffing and the odd sample buried in the mix, but that said they do managed to put their own stamp on one or two tracks. Singer Curtis Skelton has a pretty good voice, sounding like a mixure of Phil Amselmo, Chris Cornell (in his Soundgarden days ,and currently with Audioslave) and Sully Erna from Godsmack. As far as the music itself goes, they sound like Godsmack and Drowning Pool with a small amount of Rage Against The Machine type political lyrical statements for good measure. The vocals are mostly sung or growled and this is ok, but it must be said that the few attempts at Zack de la Rocha-style raps are pretty bad, as well as unecessary, and the album would be better off without them. Oh, and one other criticism, there are too many songs in the same key, so it can sound a little samey after a while. Standout tracks include Resentment (very neat guitar solo), 15 (Live My Life) and Riddle. In short ,not a bad album by any means, but not life-changingly spectacluar either. Fans of Godsmack, Drowing Pool etc will probably enjoy this, but I would'nt call it an essential purchase.