Napalm Records
Out Now
Words by Greg Walker
It’s no secret to anyone with even a passing interest in Nu-Metal’s nine headed juggernaut Mushroomhead that the entity has been plagued with lineup changes for a chunk of their career.
Sometimes, as is often the case, these changes are to the betterment of the band, other times not so much. New album Call The Devil sees the return of long-time guitarist Dave “Gravy” Felton, brother of Mushroomhead stalwart and main man Steve “Skinny” Felton, a boon for the group in the wake of having lost formidable frontmen J Mann and Jeffrey Nothing in recent years. Their respective replacements Scott Beck and Steve “Rawk” Rauckhorst are yet to convince me (for reasons I’ll quickly get to), however third vocalist Jackie LaPonza more than brings her A game to pick up the slack.
In spite of having never quite reached the upper echelons of Nu-Metal icons, MRH are a persistent bunch who keep coming back like a case of herpes, determined and obvious. Call The Devil’s eclectic mix of styles is classic MRH, not wanting to pigeonhole themselves even within the confines of a single album.
Opening with Eye To Eye‘s loosely outlaw country/bluegrass feel that quickly cracks open with a massive groove riff, this is brimming with promise, immediately and unmistakably MRH. Suitably intense as you’d expect, full of piss and vinegar, Eye To Eye’s mid-song breakdown has a very cool stutter to it, and the following clean vocals doing a commendable imitation of another former MRH singer Waylon Reavis, but ultimately the delivery falls short. The result lands somewhere between acknowledging a huge gap and doing an impression.
First single Fall In Line comes closer to replicating Reavis, although backing the pre-chorus with Jackie LaPonza’s strength is necessary. Leaving the chorus mostly to her is essential to the track, LaPonza’s talent well outshining her in-house contemporaries. Despite the material being characteristically MRH in sound and performance, with heavy layers of all three vocalists and hefty production by Matt Wallace, Fall In Line is still missing something for a song that is the strongest on the album. As if to emphasise this point, the single’s video clip features new masks that look like cartoon characters with an old-school horror comic feel; maybe that’s the intention, but they come across as ultra-budget this time.
The band’s love of a broad mix of wider tastes is on full display: Emptiness is a jazz-infused number, We Don’t Care starts out a grimy bluesy groover, and both do their best to replicate Jeffrey Nothing. It’s actually distracting, as though trying hardest to make up for his absence by parroting Nothing’s vocal character rather than adding a new innovative element. It does work on some level, and listening to the album in the background as I work around the house it could be mistaken for Jeff’s work, however with earbuds it’s painfully obvious it’s a duplication.
Prepackaged is a monster that feels unfinished but boasts an enormous centre section that reveals this album’s secret – this version of Mushroomhead is great at harnessing moments, but fails to capitalise and build around them. Exhibit: A is Decomposition, starting with a unique but intriguing carnival-based swagger that sadly descends into an unnecessary faux-Vaudeville weirdness that again wastes a cool riff moment. Truth be told, by the time attempted grand ballad Grand Gesture lines up, I’ve already lost interest out of frustration at the disconnect between promising moments within songs.
Shame In A Basket goes some way to get me back onside, a swing back and forth from gargantuan riff to unsettlingly quiet, but in the end doesn’t quite launch to an epic level, leaving an incomplete feel yet again. Does one member have too tight of a stranglehold of the reins? I don’t know their inner machinations, but this album thus far has felt like an ambitious attempt beyond individual capabilities, something that shouldn’t be said of a group with Mushroomhead’s longevity of experience. And what is that rubber chicken sounding rubbish in closer Doom Goose, who concocted THAT??
Vocally, this effort is commendable but leaves us wanting in comparison to historical line-ups involving Waylon Reavis and Jeffrey Nothing, the band clearly suffering from their loss. Were Jeff and Waylon the be-all end-all? Certainly not and MRH have already proven there’s life beyond those eras, however their work was central to MRH’s essence, their releases filled with genuine venom and authenticity.
If they were to heed my advice, I’d urge MRH explore what both new vocalists Scott Beck and Steve Rauckhorst can offer them, rather than the other way around as Call The Devil suggests is the current mindset. Adding Jackie is a stroke of genius, her presence threatening to bring to fruition some mainstream success that they were on the brink of cracking with Waylon. She is underutilised though, and despite her glowing but limited input, for me this album would land somewhere in the middle to lower rating as part of MRH’s overall discography, not bad but not stellar.
Call The Devil is not an awful effort by any stretch, it’s better than a lot of bands flooding our feeds at the moment, but for an act with such a foothold in the global scene I’d expected more. I’m genuinely intrigued to see how this revitalised band and vocal combo develops from here; I don’t believe this triple threat has begun to realise its fullest potential. Theirs is a promising vocal combination that the group as a whole need to develop and capitalise on if they’re to progress from here and branch out from leaning solely on their groove and Jackie LaPonza as Mushroomhead’s only strengths, as Call The Devil indicates they’re doing.
