This waste of time isn’t worth downloading for free. Monotonous, unimaginative and lacking any sense of recklessness whatsoever: this is the aural equivalent of huffing beer farts at a baseball game. These songs are completely forgettable and best forgotten.
The first album, “Beyond The Valley of the Murderdolls” was a dynamite record that spit in the face of the rock of the late 90s, (which was growing stale). It was fun, catchy and beautifully sophomoric – Misfits meets Motley – filled with crazy, 3-minute horror-spiked tunes you could whistle and hum (“I Love To Say Fuck!;” “Dead In Hollywood;” “197666”). So, so much fun!
Well that’s gone. This album is nothing like that and it doesn’t break any new ground either – it’s not “heavier” and “cooler” – it just sounds like some band trying to sound like the Murderdolls. Gone are the dumb, catchy choruses, head-bobbing riffs; gone are the silly songs about grave-robbing and killing… instead there’s “Drug Me To Hell” and “My Dark Place Alone.” These sound more like glum Korn b-sides done by a Soil cover band: sound and fury signifying nothing. To the point: the songs are boring. There’s no life here, no pulse, no electricity. Only one song, “Hello, Goodbye, Die” boasts enough charm to sound like a lost track from the first record.
The brainiacs behind this tragedy are, of course, Joey Jordison and Wednesday 13. Wednesday is a singer/guitarist who writes catchy, fun tunes with B-movie horror themes. Joey Jordison is the drummer from Slipknot who plays guitar and started the band. As a guitarist/songwriter, he’s an awesome drummer; as an A&R guy, he’s a genius. He took Wednesday 13 from obscurity to notoriety by revamping song from his old band and calling it Murderdolls. Then hired a bunch of cool guys (Ben Graves, Acey Slade, Eric Griffin) to play the shit out of that record on tour and create a near-legend. But then Joey went back to Slipknot and the ‘Dolls went away.
Now they’re back after 8 years. The problem is that all this time everyone kinda expected Joey and Wednesday to record with the other guys to see what that would have been like. Instead Joey and Wednesday recorded the album by themselves (as they did the first time). Early interviews had them boasting about how much heavier and cool it was going to be (it’s not). How could they go so wrong? Again, the first record relied largely on Wednesday’s already proven work. Wednesday has been recording steadily since the first Murderdolls record and a lot of that stuff is great, sounds like Murderdolls stuff and went largely unheard by a wide audience. This is all brand new stuff so one immediately begins to suspect where the problem lies if it isn’t Wednesday. They should have just stuck with the formula. If that first record didn't exist, this would only be interesting, but hardly worthy of the hype.
Now they’re going out with new, different guys and it’s like… who cares? But people will go because they’ll do the old stuff - and a lot of kids missed ‘em the first time around - which only increased the mystique that the touring band created. So, clearly the motivation behind the whole thing was for Joey and Wednesday to make as much money as possible on merch and just pay new guys to do whatever – which demonstrates how little heart is behind this. Which is sad, really, because they used to be cool.
No Stars - A Total Stinker
