Review by MartinDavey87 for Static-X - Wisconsin Death Trip (1999)

Static-X's debut album came at a time when the nu metal subgenre was helping heavy metal get its foothold back in the mainstream, and whilst commonly labelled as industrial metal, Wayne Static and his lads were able to easily slip in with the rest of the "nu" crowd and stand out as one of the heavier acts the scene had to offer.

Sadly, that alone won't make them much good.

For all the hype and nostalgia around this release, it isn't really all that impressive, and certainly hasn't aged too well. It's very repetitive, and not very exciting. Almost every guitar riff sounds the same, and whilst there are some fat grooves dotted around, as a whole, it just seems like one of those albums you claim to like, but you're not really sure why.

Wayne Static's mostly incomprehensible vocals and guttural noises wear thin pretty quickly, and there's quite a few "slow" moments on the album that probably detract, more than add, to the dynamics. There are a couple of passable tracks, for example, 'Love Dump' (which to me, was the heaviest song ever when I first heard it way back in the day), 'Bled for Days' and 'Push It' aren't bad... but none of them are really all that memorable, either. Then there's complete tosh like 'December'. Who thought that "song" was a good idea?

'Wisconsin Death Trip' might be worth picking up for the sake of nostalgia, but you'll quickly remember why you forgot about it in the first place.