Nu metal has been experiencing something of a revival of late, with a well received nostalgia tour from Alien Ant Farm, Hoobastank and P.O.D, a new album from Disturbed, and a second stage festival headline slot from Limp Bizkit. One hit wonders Crazy Town are the latest band to attempt to grab a piece of the pie, with new album ‘The Brimstone Sluggers’. 2000’s ‘Butterfly’ single is still a guaranteed floor filler at rock nights, but does the world really need a new album of Crazy Town material in 2015?
Opener ‘Come Inside’ kicks proceedings off with futuristic synths and an insistent drum beat, and seems to be an ode to frontman Shifty Shellshock’s pursuit of a young lady, possessing a half decent chorus with its “Just know that I am broken on the inside too, with you I’m alive” refrain.
Single ‘Born to Raise Hell’ is the first track to feature some of the many guest contributors that litter the album, and initially feels like it could turn into a massive Euro trance tune, before the opening line of “We got our middle fingers up, you know that we don’t give a fuck” affirms that Shifty’s lyricism hasn’t improved in the years the band were away. The hackneyed chorus, featuring singer/ songwriter J Angel, sounds anything but dangerous however, and the line “I swear to God I almost pulled a Robin Williams” is wholly unnecessary.
‘Ashes’, featuring Tom Dumont of No Doubt, contains the first hint of real guitar on the album, and has a nice reggae feel to it, although the initial promise and catchy chorus are ruined by Shellshock’s effects laden vocals and some more nondescript rapping. At this point Crazy Town obviously feel they have hit on a winning formula, so ‘Megatron’ continues in the same vein, containing vocals which have been stripped entirely of any human quality and replaced with a robotic, overly layered and auto tuned sound, rapped passages and a ‘big’ chorus.
‘Backpack’ could have been lifted from Limp Bizkit’s ‘Three Dollar Bill, Y’all’ album, and is probably the best song on the album, featuring some welcome natural sounding female vocals, despite guest star Bishop Lamont’s best efforts to ruin the song with more ill advised rapping. ‘The Keys’ seems to contain barely any input from the members of Crazy Town, being a vehicle for Canadian rapper Madchild who asserts he is going to “chew these rappers out and spit them out like I’m from Wrigley’s” during by far the worst three minutes on the album.
By the time ‘Lemonface’ comes around, Shifty and pals have run out of ideas completely, using a sample already heard earlier on in the album (Run DMC’s “Ah yeah”). The track is one of the few on the album without a guest appearance, although it sticks to the same formula of hip hop drums/layered vocals/samples/rapped section, and eventually peters out, as the band have now run out of choruses as well as ideas.
‘The Brimstone Sluggers’ contains so many guest appearances it’s more like a collaboration than a Crazy Town album in its own right, but we should probably be thankful for that. It’s difficult to understand what the band are trying to achieve in releasing this album after such a long break, but it offers very little in the way of new ideas, and on this evidence not many people would miss them if there are another thirteen years between albums.
TOM DANIEL