Hollywood Undead-Notes From The Underground (Rap-Rock) (1/5)

Whilst Hollywood Undead have always been rather bad with their annoying tendencies to throw in rapped verses and verses that fit looser than a fat man's trousers, they have been fairly tolerable through singles such as Hear Me Now and the surprisingly strong song Bullet. Until now. The band's past work held something of a Minutes To Midnight-era Linkin Park feel of a band that were confused about what direction they wished to proceed in but on here it has become evident where they have chosen to go with their music-right down the drain. In place of the enjoyable although ridiculous formula that populated their past albums, which wasn't good but wasn't quite the biggest atrocity commited in the music industry to date we have a boring and samey release that attempts the same thing on every song with even less enjoyment to be garnered from it.

Take Dead Bite for instance-it begins with a ridiculous electronic introductory instrumental and then launches into a catastrophe of a song with the most annoying, pathetic autotuned chorus of all time reading "what would you say if I told you I hate you". The rapping in the second verse begins a little stronger but then straight away dips back down in quality to the point it will put you to sleep-guaranteed. The reference to "Jack Nicholson in The Shining, breakin' ya door down" is the most ridiculous and poorly integrated snapshot of the lyrics possible to hold up as an example why this album sucks. But then, when you thought it couldn't get any worse, just before the third verse there is the most insultingly bad little section with a digitally altered voice saying some words that are nearly impossible to make out. Stay away from this song and the album in general.

The instrumental work on the past album was not quite terrible and certainly not as snooze inducing as that found here, as this takes everything good about that and completely ruins it. In place of the decent enough beats, solid bass lines and catchy moments such as found on Bullet-the best song this band has ever put out-we have a generic, bland, boring obvious attempt to gain even more fans but I fail to see how anyone could enjoy this. The autotuned to *** chorus to We Are opens the song up and sounds rather promising but then we go into the most minimalistic instrumental performance on Earth during the verse. This song sounds rather like Hear Me Now in the overly confident rapping that then shifts directly into a sing-a-long friendly chorus and might be slightly tolerable if the rapping wasn't obscenely bad-the members of this band have really taken a nose dive in talent even further than on their past release. Another bad point worth noting about this album is the pointless use of profanity, specifically a certain four lettered word beginning with F that could not have been worse written if it were on a Slipknot album. Take the section of the aforementioned We Are at around 2.25-is there any need for 3 F-words in a verse that lasts around fifteen to twenty seconds?

This is a train wreck of an album that follows on from the band's past attempt to rip off Linkin Park's middle-era works with the rapping leading into catchy choruses but it is a shame that the band kills off any potential the release may have had.This is infested with appalling rapping and one of the most predictable instrumental performances on Earth, an abundance of auto tune and the obvious over-production that comes with any album of this form today. If there were one album that is NOT recommended this year whatsoever if you value your sanity or your wallet, this is the one you do not need to risk exposing yourself to.