Mushroomhead - Mushroomhead (1995)^{Release ID: 7006}

Like most metalheads, I'm not a fan of nu metal. However, I don't hate it as much as those other metalheads do. A little overrated, but not everything about it is a downright atrocity. My brother likes a bit of nu metal, alongside his usual hard rock/alt-metal/post-grunge, and I was following his music footsteps before starting my own metal path. Mushroomhead is probably the closest band to nu metal that I enjoy, and they play a more experimental take on alt-metal.

For those who think Slipknot is the band that introduced horror-themed masks to nu metal, Mushroomhead already invented that aspect before Slipknot popularized it. The alt-metal sound with bits of hardcore/industrial metal in this album should've had more fame than their aesthetics, though their 1995 self-titled debut is bit of a rough start...

"Slow Thing" is an interesting track to kick off the album. It's an instrumental gothic-ish piano ballad with samples from a couple documentaries about LSD and marijuana. Then the last minute is an audio sample from an intense scene in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me ("IT'S HIM!!! IT'S YOUR FATHER!!" "ARRG!!!!" "STOP IT!!!"). From the White Zombie-ish "Elevation", you're already in for some punk-ish chords, melodic synths, strong cleans/shouts, and percussive assault. Some Ministry/Killing Joke influences are snuck into their alt-metal. "Too Much Nothing" has riffs and vocals that might end up spawning a nickname for this band, "Alice Inch Nails". Then we have a useless piano "Intermission" before we can proceed further into the album.

"Ego Tripp" has more funky fury to remind some of Suicidal Tendencies. "Mommy" is a cute yet sexual-sounding ballad with soft lovely guest vocals by Mandy Lascko. A bit weird but a great break from the more thrashy heavily-sampled arrangements in other songs. "2nd Thoughts" shows the band easily mixing together alt-metal with old-school electro-dance music. The only other band who could do that mix well at the time is Waltari. "Casualties in B Minor" is another pointless interlude and probably the worst of them. That's practically what most metalheads would consider a boring lullaby.

I'm indifferent to the song "Indifferent". Then "Simpleton" is far too simple to impress me at all. "43" starts with that One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest sample that also started Mastodon's EP Lifeblood ("DO YOU UNDERSTAND!? FINALLY!?!"), then the song itself is a catchy rocker with the two vocalist Jeffrey Hatrix and Jason Popson performing their Mike Patton-influenced vocals well. "Episode 29" is another instrumental, but it's much better than the other ones. It starts with a sample from David Lynch’s Hotel Room ("You're not a nice person. You're a b***h.") then leads into some wicked electro-industrial with some background samples from Twin Peaks. The remix in the Remix EP is f***ing killer. "Snap" is a strange outro that reprises the "LSD user" sample from the first track. After 29 silent tracks, the 43rd track is a medley of several highlights from the album, and each clip is separated by a different-pitched sample of "Slow Thing". It's cool and all, but at the same time, absolutely worthless and baffling.

So here we have a standard E-tuned (in PAL speed/pitch) platter of alt-metal gone experimental and industrial (NO avant-garde metal). A nice beginning for the band, but don't expect this album to be a grand work of art....

Favorites: "Elevation", "Too Much Nothing", "Mommy", "2nd Thoughts", "43", "Episode 29"