Are genre tags pointless?
When Limp Bizkit were announced as headliners at last year’s Sonisphere at Machine Head’s expense, music writers did the obvious thing and speculated wildly that nu-metal was making a come back. ‘KoRn still play big gigs, Linkin Park are selling records, Slipknot are back’ you could argue, I suppose, but the bile still reserved for the abortion that was metal in the early ‘00s by the so-called tr00 metal-heads out there is still unrivalled. So, in this context where do we put Exhibit A who have a definite nu-metal sound? Riff heavy ‘Personification of People’ could have been on the ‘Burning Red’ or by American Head Charge. Support slots with Dry Kill Logic and Skindred probably would have helped shift the assumption that these guys are no more than a nu-metal jukebox.
The riffs are suitably down tuned and monolithic while the drums lay down a solid, if unspectacular, rhythm and on ‘Pools of Broken Glass’ there is a definite Deftones approach to the vocals whereas ‘Rachel is on Fire’ sounds like early KoRn. So far, so guilty but in Exhibit A’s defence the tracks are delivered with the utmost conviction and a genuine feeling of passion bleeds through "Portrait in Rhyme". Maybe there is an audience for these guys - people still turn out in their thousands to see those shysters in Mötlëy Cruë shake their blood and hair metal was thought long dead - but I won’t be in it.