Tuesday 26 February 2019

Album Review: PAPA ROACH - Who Do You Trust?

Papa Roach - Who Do You Trust?

01. The Ending
02. Renegade Music
03. Not The Only One
04. Who Do You Trust?
05. Elevate
06. Come Around
07. Feel Like Home
08. Problems
09. Top Of The World
10. I Suffer Well
11. Maniac
12. Better Than Life

Papa Roach have been guilty of jumping on musical bandwagons for many years. They can throw buzzwords like 'evolution' into their interviews, but I like to think that most of their fans are more intelligent than that. To be fair to them, they've usually gotten away with their shameless trend following because of the quality of their output. As long as any band is pumping out decent, catchy songs, they can get away with pretty much anything. Having said that, I'm not so sure that this time they're going to be so successful.

Who Do You Trust? reminds me of Bring Me The Horizon's Amo (read my review here), in the respect that it's a Pop album. However, Papa Roach are a little smarter than Bring Me The Horizon, as they have splashes of Rock here and there to tie the album to the rest of their back catalogue, as opposed to alienating their fans with something completely detached from what they'd expect to hear. Papa Roach also write better songs.

Singer Jacoby Shaddix is in fine voice, and he's arguably one of the best vocalists in modern Rock and Metal. You rarely hear people praising Jacoby though, because of how 'un-cool' Papa Roach and Nu Metal are generally perceived to be.

Who Do You Trust? is packed with catchy Pop Rock songs, the best of which is the title track, the 'diet-Rage Against The Machine' of Renegade Music, and the two singles Not The Only One and the millennial whoop-tastic Elevate. However, with the exception of the solitary Punk outburst of I Suffer Well, there isn't much bite on this album. It's mostly lightweight, and I got really bored of it very quickly.  

Papa Roach may be praised by some for trying something different, but to me, it sounds like a band desperate for mainstream success. I just don't think it's quite good enough to achieve that, and they may lose fans during this experiment. Let's hope this record is just 'a blip', and they'll be back to doing what they do best next time.


SHARE:

No comments

Post a Comment

Blog Layout Designed by pipdig