In today’s day and age of the Hip Hop influenced rock scene, very seldom are we rewarded with an album that does not feature a DJ or turntable. Either we are force fed some half assed collaboration between a rock band and some middle level rapper/hip hop “artist" or we are expected to listen to a no talent singer talk his way through a couple of versus telling us how hard core and “down” he truly is. Now don’t get me wrong, I due enjoy some of the bands to come for this mixture of rock and rap but enough is enough. Did any Rock Fan know who the hell Method Man was before Limp Bizkit? Long is lost the day that a band would consist of musicians that would, get this, let their musical ability talk for them. Today it seems that image and “street cred” get the majority of focus from radio stations and record labels while the ability to play a fucking instrument is become nothing more than an after thought.
Which now brings me to Drowning Pool. On their major label debut, Sinner, they decided to let their music do the talking. You will not find any rapping, “dope” beats or any sense that the album is over produced and polished to the songs lack of substance or integrity. From the moment that vocalist Dave Williams howls “Bend me, shape me, misdirect me, it is all the same to me” on the title track, you can feel the groundwork of a pure metal album being set. The quartet plows through every song with equal intensity as the first. C.J. Pierce’s guitar work crunches in every riff as Steve Benton [bass] and Mike Luce [drums] Lay down an air tight, blistering foundation. The albums crowning moment comes from the hit single, "Bodies", which very well might be the first rock anthem of the summer, and deservingly so. The best way to describe this song is to call it the musical equivalent to crack. You will be hooked on it from the first listen. You will not find any Stairway to Heaven’s or Coma’s on this album with each track clocking in at a 3-minute average but that is just fine in my book. Drowning Pool’s effort is more than welcome in my collection.
You are not going to find anything ground breaking or original on Sinner. In fact, while listening to the album, you can make a fairly strong case that you have heard all this shit before. That is where Drowning Pool’s appeal lies. In the same mode as Godsmack, they just wanted to make a pure metal album and in that, they have succeeded. We have more than enough Limp’s in music today that a welcome a change back to some good, old fashioned, head banging tunes. What Drowning Pool lacks in originality and while Sinner does not even rate on a revolutionary scale, it is still worth the listen just so we can be reminded how a rock band is supposed to sound.
