Godsmack

I've always been meh on Godsmack. Something about their debut album feels off, but i think i'm the one who's wrong. Godsmack wasn't discovered, or manufactured, they didn't get lucky. They paid for their first album themselves, but it got so popular that the little label that published it legitimately couldn't afford the scale of manufacturing and distribution. So they signed with a major label that could invest that much money, remastered and slightly reorganized the tracks, and they're still recording and touring today.

People sometimes call them nu metal, but that's just wrong. They are hard rock with industrial undertones, and it is blatantly obvious that they graduated from the Page Hamilton school of guitar riffage. They are Helmet's little brother, who can't decide if he's a  cult kid or a biker. It's got the samples and electronics of industrial and hardcore, the dropped d riffing of the simplest Helmet or Tool, Zakk Wylde-esque guitar solos, and faint whiffs of stoner groove.

Now that i'm listening to it again after years, it's much more appealing than i remember. But, there are highs and lows. Get Up, Get Out! is sub par. There are moments of sonic vacancy in earlier tracks, but the unexplainable void where rhythm guitar should be is inexcusable. It's also lyrically pointless, and they should have just cut it. Granted, this is just a repackaged demo, but why leave an obvious weak link in an otherwise intriguing album?

I think the thing most lacking is consistency. The production level, the songwriting, the sonic palette, the orchestration are all over the place and it gets really distracting. It's also just wrong for a self titled debut album; it would have been better just continuing to call it All Wound Up.

There's a funny story about that warning label, too. This record was on Wal and K mart shelves for a long time without it, but some guy complained that the lyrics were offensive. The result of course is that it sold even better, because the warning made kids desperate to offend their parents. That's graduate level marketing, but it's nothing compared to Lords of Acid's Voodoo U, which as a teenager i had to buy from under the counter like smut because a naked lesbian cartoon devil orgy couldn't just sit in a music store bin. Maybe i'll write about that album tomorrow.

The potential is clearly there. They are one of the few examples of a band that was going to be famous and make money for whomever put down the cash to package a 100,000 copies at a time. In hindsight, they suffer from my personal dislike for the origins of non blues based hard rock at the turn of the 21st century. A lot of terrible crap got made in the early 2000s while we were trying to figure out how to get angry and care again. I heard Godsmack as the start of that mainstream descent into the bad side of genre fusion. I grew up with their actual influences pounding my eardrums, and they sound clumsily derivative to me. That's not fair, but it is true. Godsmack is fine, i'm just jaded and can't give them the fair start that everyone else could.

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