Papa Roach sold three million copies of its 2000 album, Infest, with power-chord tantrums about alcoholism, divorce and attention deficit disorder. Two albums later, on Getting Away With Murder, the band is splitting its fury between personal and political diatribes. Producer Howard Benson and mixer Chris Lord-Alge are both professionals, masters of compression and punching up the radio mix. This is what they offered Papa Roach – a promise that the band's Getting Away With Murder will sound both raging and properly marketable. This album is more than just a return to form for Papa Roach, its something of a reinvention. Its still pretty basic stuff guitar-wise, but the songwriting has improved greatly since their previous albums, with far greater diversity to each song and more poetic lyrics. It seems that now the songs have, on the whole, become a lot more positive, and vocalist Jacoby Shaddix seems to have ditched the rap-metal style, which propelled the band to fame originally. The result is a more credible, emotional album, packed with strong, fist-in-the-air choruses.

Sonically it’s the title track that holds the key to this album of short, crunchy, often fantastic, rockers and slow-burning stomps. The star of the show is drummer Dave Buckner, whose army-ant tom-toms nail the sludgy, grinding detuned guitar howl right to the wall, and don’t let it go. The stomping, war-dance feel that permeates Getting Away With Murder is largely down to his role as drill-sergeant. Album highlights include Getting Away With Murder, near-ballad Scars – packed with poetic angst and raw emotion – and the anthemic Do or Die, which comes very close to being one of the best songs they’ve ever produced. The second and very impressive Papa Roach’s lovehatetragedy album dealt mostly with failing relationships but now it is quite a lot more than drink, death and break-ups, it is about feelings of guilt and apologies for you not being there as much as you should have. The lyrics also fit beautifully with the rhythm of the songs and the singing tunes are very addictive.

With Getting Away With Murder Papa Roach haven't lost their touch, and they have also grown more as a band with this recent release. If you miss the sound of Infest, then you may not like this release. But if you were digging the change in LoveHateTragedy, then there's a really good chance you'll enjoy this album. Getting Away With Murder is Papa Roach's best effort to date as in this album you can sense their confidence and grasp with their musical talents more clearly than ever before. While the other two albums were without a doubt great, this one shows the band as more of a solid hard-rock band rather than your typical Nu-Metal performers. The way they approach their demons has changed into a much more solid and distinct sound. This album would make a nice addition to any metal fan’s collection.

În Getting Away With Murder, the band is splitting its fury between personal and political diatribes. This album is more than just a return to form for Papa Roach, its something of a reinvention

28.07.2005