Hollywood Undead - American Tragedy (2011)
Some time after the release and massive success of "Swan Songs" from many different audiences due to its wide appeal, getting people who loved hip-hop, pop, rock, and/or emo to buy it, they parted ways with Deuce, the GUY WHO SINGS ALL OF THEIR CHORUSES AND PRODUCES ALL OF THEIR SONGS!! He's also American (even though he's got some weird Communist tattoo on his hand or some shit) and I guess on paper, for the band, that was a tragedy, but not really, because along with BRAND-SPANKIN' NEW MASKS, the band decided to go balls-deep and recruited Daniel Murillo of Lorene Drive to be their new chorus-singer, which immediately draws comparisons between Daniel Murillo (oh yeah, his stage-name? "Danny") and Deuce, his predecessor. Well, Daniel's actually a much more capable and stronger vocalist than Deuce ever was, with an even higher but more powerful voice, which really helps in their rock-based songs, but their hip-hop songs.. We'll get to that later.
A huge question is "How does this compare to "Swan Songs" you fucking yokel?!" and you are a rude son of a bitch. It compares in all of the ways that you'd expect it to, with the rappa and the singa and the guitar riffa, you know, the shit that made you get off to Linkin Park back in the day, but it also expands on their sound a bit. Sure, you've got the aggressive opening track "Been to Hell" to kinda mimic the format of "Swan Songs" right off the bat, but truth is, this song isn't as good as "Undead" was! "Undead" made you want to drunkenly scream at people, and "Been to Hell" makes you want to upload a really shitty guitar-cover to YouTube because it's one of the few songs that you can play on your shitty out-of-tune guitar. YES, this is the one where the name of the album gets name-dropped, and BAM, it serves as a pretty aight intro to the album.
Now, where the album shines is in its more hip-hop based tracks. "Apologize", "Comin' in Hot", "Gangsta Sexy" and quite a few others are all great and catchy, so fans of songs like "Everywhere I Go" and "No. 5" will feel right at home. In fact, when I first got this album, I got a leak of it at 6 AM one morning, decided to play one song before heading to bed, decided to try "Gangsta Sexy" based off the title, said "They did it again" and went back to sleep, knowing that they at least have their hooks deep into party songs again. Another place where the album doesn't just shine, but glisten, is in its poppier tracks like "Coming Back Down", which talks about the death of a loved one, and "Pour Me", a calm tune about alcoholism and attempting to overcome it, which caused me to say "Isn't this just "The Diary" from the last album?!" but thankfully, this is better than that piece of shit because at least I can listen to this without feeling like a complete emo bastard... I've got other music for that. The pop tracks contain a certain vibe to them that was impossible for them to have achieved with Deuce in the band, given that his vocals were a lot more nasally and less gentle than Daniel Murillo's voice. Daniel Murillo sings like one pretty son of a bitch!!
Unfortunately, and this isn't Daniel Murillo's fault, the album occasionally runs into an issue of trying to be too damn much like Linkin Park without as much of the balls behind the music. "Hear Me Now", while an okay tune, comes across as too by-the-numbers when it comes to "how to make a nu-metal song from the early 2000s" without any of the heaviness, sounding straight-to-radio, which, mind you, it was! Of course, you also run into this exact same problem with the Deuce-diss (yep, they had to diss him, because he had been running his mouth like MAD after being kicked out) "Lights Out", "Tendencies", and even more, with "Glory" being the biggest offender of them all, with its admittedly mature and interesting lyrics in the verses detailing being a soldier, and then its repetitive chorus of "We did it for the GLORY, the GLORY, only the GLORY. We live inside a STORY, it's a STORY all for the GLORY." will make you wonder if you downloaded a leaked demo of the song instead. It's straight-to-Call-of-Duty and should be playing while you play the zombie mode or whatever. Buttrock, I guess.
Also worth noting before getting into more of the flaws of this album is that this album finds the band exploring new ground and having fun, with the 1950s gangster-themed "Lump Your Head" which is a song you'll probably quickly tire of, and the song that was the bane of my existence in 2011: "Bullet". No, not a Misfits cover, surprisingly enough, I know you were expecting it, but a folky-pop song about killing yourself, and the music is so happy that you'd almost just miss the lyrics if you didn't pay attention. See, before Twenty One Pilots started doing that "happy music, sad lyrics" shit that teenagers get off on, Hollywood Undead was doing it just to piss me off with people circlejerking over it! It's a good'n, though, with Charlie Scene singing the chorus, which helps diversify it even further than just it being a FUCKING FOLK-POP SONG ON A RAP-ROCK ALBUM. Gotta applaud the band for sticking their toes into ice-cold water, even if they only managed to get a single foot in. Another weird thing of note is how Hollywood Undead's members appear to view themselves: Parts of "Apologize" and even part of Charlie Scene's verse in "Le Deux" leads me to believe that they think they're a LOT more controversial than they are, and that parents are scared of them, when in actuality, as a fan who was majorly into them when this album came out, they hadn't a significant controversy to their name. That's one chapter of "How to Rap Like Eminem" that you can leave out of your next album, guys!!
Alright so if there's one thing to really take away from this album, it's that it's as good as "Swan Songs" but in a different, generally more mature way, but there's a completely different vibe to the music. When you listened to "Swan Songs", you could tell that Deuce was a natural and great fit for the band that served as essentially the musical core to everything, given that he produced and apparently wrote a lot of the music. It was "Deuce & Friends", essentially, but when you throw Daniel Murillo in there instead, it feels like "Hollywood Undead (Feat. Daniel Murillo)" on a lot of the songs, to the point where he, instead of feeling like a permanent member (which he is), he ends up feeling more like a guest performer at a concert where the vocalist couldn't make it. That combined with the gentle (but gorgeous) nature of his voice, his boasts on the party songs don't at all sound believable and prove to be unintentionally funny, and some of the harder hitting songs don't smash the listener the way they should because Daniel Murillo's voice is basically pop-perfection with hardly any of an edge or grit to it. I'd still take him over Deuce most of the time, but considering the fact that he's performing with some (at times angry sounding) rappers who don't aim for humor a lot on this album, Daniel can, at times, best serve as a pretty face with a pretty voice. Something's gotta get those notes on Tumblr, right?
ALSO I TOTALLY USED TO SING "Levitate" IN THE SHOWER AND THAT SONG IS UNDERRATED. SUCK MY ERECTILE DYSFUNCTIONAL DICK!!!
7/10
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Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!
