The 2002 numbers are in, and it's official: last year was a bad one for the
music industry in terms of sales. And it was simply a terrible one for
commercial heavy metal. The only bands who released platinum albums were Korn
and Disturbed, and even those two perennial favorites struggled to match the
sales of their previous discs. The genre's flagship tour, OzzFest, endured a
summer of hardship that started with a cancer scare for first lady Sharon
Osbourne and ended with the sudden death of Drowning Pool frontman Dave
Williams, who succumbed to heart disease on his tour bus. Meanwhile, a bunch of
well-dressed collegiate types threatened to take over rock and roll in the name
of emo pop and garage punk.
Still, there were a few bright spots on the new-metal landscape. Linkin Park,
System of a Down, and P.O.D. kept cranking out hits from their year-old
breakthrough albums, and the latter two were rewarded with top billing on
OzzFest. The year ahead is shaping up to be a huge one with the announcement of
the Summer Sanitarium Tour, which hits Gillette Stadium in Foxboro on July 6
with performances by Metallica, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, and Deftones -- each
of whom expects to have a new disc in stores this spring.
Until then, rock radio is biding its time with a clutch of new-metal releases
from last fall. System of a Down's Toxicity is still in heavy rotation,
even though the LA art-thrash agitators have already released a follow-up,
Steal This Album! (both Columbia). Memphis melody men Saliva just
released their second disc, Back into Your System (Island), and they're
headlining the Jaegermeister Music Tour, which hits Avalon on March 9. Two
lesser-known bands, the moody Chicago trio Chevelle and sensitive Ann Arbor
dudes Taproot, are finally starting to catch on after a couple of years on the
scene. Both groups are opening for Disturbed on the "Music as a Weapon Tour,"
which stops by the Central Maine Civic Center in Lewiston on March 19 and the
Tsongas Arena in Lowell on March 21.
System of a Down's Steal This Album! is an odds-and-sods collection of
previously unreleased tracks written throughout their lifespan -- from before
they were signed up through the studio sessions for Toxicity. The band
hadn't intended to release the CD so soon after Toxicity, but they
changed their mind when rough mixes of the material showed up on the Internet
last spring. So they returned to the studio with producer Rick Rubin, put the
finishing touches on the tracks, and packaged Steal This Album! to look
like a bootleg: no artwork, just a track list and instructions on how to find
lyrics and credits on the Internet.
Since System of a Down already have the entire rock world's attention, they can
afford to pull stunts like that, and Steal This Album! builds on their
reputation as one of the quirkier and more intense bands in the new-metal
pantheon. The first single, "Innervision," is as twitchy and evil as anything
on Toxicity, and its harmony-rich chorus makes it one of the most
radio-friendly songs the group have released. They continue the trend toward
melody on "Roulette," an acoustic duet between frontman Serj Tankian and
guitarist Daron Malakian. "I don't know/How I feel when I'm around you," sing
the two banshees in a rare moment of peace and quiet. The disc wraps up one
track later with "Streamline," which finds Tankian back in howling mode and
Malakian unleashing a cinematic tearjerker of a guitar solo.
Chevelle
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These tunes are among the most personal the band have recorded. But Steal
This Album! also reminds us that political rumblings bring out the best in
System of a Down. On the funk-metal peace chant "I-E-A-I-A-I-O," Tankian spouts
surrealist riddles and Malakian breaks the tension with a few bars of the metal
classic "Knight Rider." They get more explicit on the punked-up anti-war cry
"A.D.D.": "We don't give a fuck about your world/With all your global profits
and all your jeweled pearls." As one of rock's most skilled and uncompromising
acts, System of a Down have mastered the art of heavy-metal protest music.
Saliva gained a foothold in rock radio two years ago when their major-label
debut, Every Six Seconds (Island), went gold on the strength of the hit
"Your Disease." But the band's real breakthrough came last summer, when
frontman Josey Scott scored a Top 10 smash with "Hero," a duet with Nickelback
frontman Chad Kroeger from the blockbuster Spider-Man soundtrack
(Columbia). Saliva had already flirted with pop on their first album, so it's
no surprise that their new Back into Your System follows "Hero" into
more commercial waters.
Scott tackles domestic violence from the victim's perspective on "Always," the
first single. "I love you/I hate you/I can't get around you," he sings,
reaching his breaking point on the bombastic chorus. His bandmates have an
unfortunate tendency to settle for bar-band clichés, but they make up
for it with their knack for balancing melody with crunch. On the second single,
"Rest in Pieces," they get a lesson from pop-metal master Nikki Sixx, who dug
their first album so much that he personally presented them with this tune.
Like Sixx's best work with Mötley Crüe, it's a sticky-sweet power
ballad with a sarcastic twist, and the band have no trouble empathizing with
its mushy heart.
Saliva have acknowledged the influence of Southern hip-hop on their sound ever
since they first hit radio with the rap-metal chug of "Your Disease." And
despite its pop overtones, there's plenty of rabble rousing on Back into
Your System. Scott exudes rock-star charisma on the opening "Superstar II";
"Raise Up" is a solid new-metal party jam. Back into Your System comes
off as the work of a band who can't decide whether they want to be pop softies
or rock bad boys. For now, at least, Saliva are doing a pretty good job of
having it both ways.
Saliva
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Four years ago, Chevelle made their new-metal debut with Point #1
(Squint), which was recorded by indie-rock legend Steve Albini and landed a
pair of singles on rock radio. Like P.O.D., the band -- brothers Pete (vocals
and guitar), Joe (bass), and Sam (drums) Loeffler -- got their start in the
Christian-rock scene: Squint is an imprint of the powerhouse Christian label
Word. Two years ago, Word was acquired by Warner Bros., and the group ended up
leaving Squint during the restructuring that followed.
That situation inspired the title of their new Wonder What's Next
(Epic), a release that was delayed several times while Chevelle were changing
labels. What turned out to be next for Chevelle was a taste of stardom: the
album is already gold, and they were just named to the main-stage line-up at
OzzFest 2003, which hits the Tweeter Center in Mansfield on August 14. The
lumbering first single is a smash, a slow-burning anthem that culminates with a
classic new-metal tantrum: "Seeing red again!" "The Red" is a catchy enough
tune, but like much new metal it doesn't sound like a shoo-in for heavy
rotation on first listen. Like Tool, Deftones, and Helmet, Chevelle specialize
in bleak, claustrophobic soundscapes and the kind of serrated edges that appeal
to boys precisely because they'll never be anyone's little sister's favorite.
Even when the band let some sunlight brighten the knotty grooves of the second
single, "Send the Pain Below," the subject matter of Pete's most salient howl
turns out to be suffocation. He mixes things up on the solo acoustic number
"One Lonely Visitor," but the vocal melody is as forlorn as the tune's title.
The group keep it slow, dark, and loud for the remainder of the disc -- the fun
here, if that's even the right word, is in the way Chevelle wind their way
through shape-shifting arrangements.
New-metal bands hardly ever get a warmer reception from critics than they do
from fans, but that's exactly what happened to Taproot when Gift
(Atlantic) came out three years ago. For their new follow-up, Welcome
(Atlantic), the band looked to remedy that situation by hiring one of modern
metal's most proven hitmakers, producer Toby Wright (Korn, Alice in Chains).
Not long after they went into the studio with Wright, the producer suggested
they go back to the drawing board to come up with better songs. They did, and
the second effort appears to have paid off.
Taproot work themselves into a funk-metal frenzy on the first single from
Welcome, "Poem," on which frontman Stephen Richards conjures up the
ghost of deceased Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley with his multi-tracked
psychedelic vocals. "You're my blessing in disguise," wails Richards on the
second single, "Mine," and his angst-ridden delivery once again sounds eerily
similar to Staley's. Other than that, the song's fidgety rhythms and clever
dissonance manifest themselves as the work of a talented young band in search
of their own identity. But it's hard not to be distracted by the band's sonic
resemblance to Alice in Chains, especially since they hired one of Alice's old
producers.
Unlike the morbid Staley, however, Richards is a fresh-faced college-town boy
who spends more time looking on the bright side of life than does your average
new-metal frontman. "Everything" is a sincere love letter to his single-parent
mom. And "Art" is an elegant redemption hymn with the album's most epic chorus:
"I must eliminate and change/Yesterday's pains today," he sings, as a string
section swoops down to emphasize the song's uplifting vibe. With tunes as
challenging as they are catchy, Taproot have made good on the hype that
surrounded their debut CD. Whether that will contribute to a turn-around in
metal's commercial fortunes in 2003 remains to be seen.
Saliva perform on Sunday March 9 at Avalon in Boston. Call (617) 423-NEXT. Chevelle
and Taproot open for Disturbed on Wednesday March 19 at the Central Maine Civic
Center in Lewiston; call (207) 775-3331. The same tour comes to the Tsongas
Arena in Lowell, MA on Friday March 21; call (617) 931-2000.
Issue Date: February 28 - March 6, 2003
