CD Review: Mudvayne – Self-Titled
December 13th, 2009 Filed under: Reviews - Music by admin
CD Review – Mudvayne
Self-Titled
Epic/Sony Music
With Mudvayne’s new self-titled album, no one could have anticipated the band would still be going strong after ten years and five studio records. Taking into account the nü-metal trendiness and alien gimmickry that plagued Mudvayne early in its career on L.D. 50 and The End of All Things To Come, the band was a sure-fire bet for the cut-out bin and has-been status. Fortunately, Mudvayne had enough foresight to grow with its audience and morph into a solid hard rock/metal band. On Mudvayne, the band reaches into its bag of tricks without stepping too far from its signature sound and proves once again that they are a viable force surging forward into its second decade.
Mudvayne bridges the old with the new by blending bone-jarring heft with hook-filled melodies. Greg Tribbett’s searing guitar on opener “Beautiful and Strange” is backed by a white-noise intro that rides into a hyper-speed tempo. As he did on last year’s The New Game, Tribbett branches out into a more varied playing style on Mudvayne, even dropping some shred-worthy solos along the way. “Scream With Me” and “Heard It All Before,” the album’s standout tracks, coast along on instantly catchy choruses but still retain enough metallic fortitude to keep the heshers happy. “All Talk” shows Mudvayne branching out with some truly mature songwriting, crafting a song that switches tempos briskly and effortlessly, utilizing each member’s respective skill. “Dead Inside” gives vocalist Chad Gray a chance to really shine with some lush harmonies constructed around Tribbett’s subtle acoustic strumming. “Beyond The Pale” is bolstered by the rubbery bassline of Ryan Martinie (the band’s underrated secret weapon, in this writer’s opinion) whose progressive flourishes are really given room to breathe on the album thanks to Jeremy Parker’s (Evanescence) production touch.
Fans should be alerted to the artwork circulating online and that which will actually appear on the cover of Mudvayne. The Paul Booth-drawn cover art appears pure white to the naked eye however when viewed under a black light, the blues and purples blossom to reveal a Gollum-meets-The Fly character. This can either be seen as a clever marketing gimmick or, as the less cynical may view it, a band that is actually still hanging on to the magic of album artwork in the digital age.
Regardless, Mudvayne finds this ever-evolving band still keeping its collective head afloat and releasing great music. Coming just thirteen months after The New Game (the two albums were actually recorded at the same time but released a year apart), Mudvayne is hardly a Load/ReLoad collection of B-grade leftovers. Continually disproving its critics and pleasing its ever-growing legion of followers over the past ten years, Mudvayne reflects the sound of a band that still has plenty to say musically and refuses to rest on its laurels or fall prey to the trappings of its past.
By Sean Cowie
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