Stuck Mojo
Southern Born Killers
Napalm
Who else is surprised music like this is still being written?
Recently, there was a post on the Decibel board wondering how a reviewed album’s numerical score is decided upon. Do us hacks pull our own ratings out of our asses or does the editorial team mull over our prose before saying something like, “hmmm… I think (s)he means 7/10.” There are no easy answers, my friends. But, using the new album by Atlanta’s long-serving rap-metal outfit, here’s one way to go about doing it:
+5 points. For coming out and putting in the effort.
+1 point. For one brotha (me) supporting a fellow brotha (Stuck Mojo frontman Lord Nelson), because anyone who deliberately walks into the shitstorm that exists around rap-metal in ’08 is going to need all the support (beyond Decibot) he can get. Enter all sorts of extended and elaborate variations on the “high five” that white people will never understand or pull off and a possible subject for Eugene Robinson’s next book. I can see it now: Slapping Skin: Cultural Hellos From the Ghetto That Could Still Get Your Ass Kicked.
+1 point. For being the band that breaks Napalm’s addiction to female-fronted, prom dress metal.
-1 point. For that band being a rap-metal band.
+2 points. For being a halfway decent rap band with super-strong choruses.
-2 points. For coming across like right-wing talk radio blowhards in “I’m American,” “For the Cause of Allah” and “Open Season.”
-3 points. For even thinking about writing a hip-hop metal ballad about pussy-whipped dudes in bands called “Yoko,” featuring the lyric “You’re my Yoko Ono / My Cher to Sonny Bono.”
+2 points. For the title track’s hard rockin’, infectious rappin’ and classic rock chorus.
-1 point. For this being the third time (at least) the band has written a song about being proud Southerners.
+2 points. For titling a song “Metal Is Dead” and making it the most thrashing, speedy and metal song on the record, complete with references to Trix and Count Chocula cereals and a middle section that reminds a lot of Vincent Price’s spoken word breakdown in “Thriller.”
Yep, 6/10 feels about right; unless Bonazelli disagrees and decides to change it. [Ed. Note: um...] —Kevin Stewart-Panko
