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Limp Bizkit

Still Sucks

Written by: PP on 22/12/2021 16:51:32

"Still Sucks" is a delightfully self-aware title for the first Limp Bizkit album in a decade. Never the critic's darlings, Fred Durst, Wes Borland, and company have thus opted to steal their words in advance, thus removing the most obvious critique from the weapons arsenal of music journalists at large. Because if we're being honest, their sixth album is still a largely insufferable collection of disjointed rap-metal songs that, two decades past the genre's expiration date, fortunately, don't sound as hopelessly dated as they did ten years ago on "Gold Cobra". Maybe rap metal is on its way back to some extent? Given the recent success of Body Count and the rise of ultra modernist nu-metal bands like Hacktivist, there is some indication that the crowds are more readily accepting of hip hop baked within a crunchy hard rock sound than they were just a decade ago.

The album opens with a trio of hard-hitting nu-metal songs that sound pretty much Limp Bizkit anno "Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water". On opener "Out Of Style", Fred Durst spells out my earlier point through some punchy, halfway aggressive slams of "It's time to rock this motherfucker 'cause I'm always out of style / Never change my style 'cause my style is kinda fresh". It's a catchy one, just like "Dirty Rotten Bizkit" which follows, and the la-dee-da sing alongable bits of "Dad Vibes".

Together, these three tracks represent the core of the Limp Bizkit sound: crunchy guitars, DJ lethal still spinning discs like it was 2001, and Fred Durst's classic I don't give a fuck attitude painted all across them. Where the band goes awry is on the weird rap-focused tracks like "Turn It Up Bitch" and "Snacky Poo", which merely demonstrate that Durst is exactly the white boy rapper that he is and nowhere near masterminds like Eminem. Similarly, the acoustic-guitar-driven ballad tracks like "Empty Hole" are attempts in vain of recreating "Behind Blue Eyes" style chart-topping mainstream pop and instead sound like b-sides from a Staind record.

That being said, there are moments where the band gives us thoroughly enjoyable throwbacks to their early days. "Barnacle" and "Pill Popper" could conceivably be on 1997's "Three dollar Bill, Y'all" given their all-out raw screams and explosive nature, whereas "You Bring Out The Worst In Me" displays a textbook example of what type of songs were glorified by mainstream press during nu-metal heydey.

Curiously enough, "Still Sucks" is considerably better than "Gold Cobra" or the god-awful "The Unquestionable Truth (Part I) EP from 2005. It's only their second full-length since 2003, and in that time, the vitriolic hatred against this type of music has long since moved on towards make-up wearing emo stars and onwards from that again. As a result, "Still Sucks" seems designed a nostalgia trip for the 30 and 40-something Bizkit fans that had forgotten that the band existed. While not an entry to the best albums charts, it sticks to its style honorably and without prejudice, resulting in a surprisingly decent album from someone long since dismissed from relevance.

Download: Out Of Style, Dirty Rotten Bizkit, Dad Vibes, You Bring Out The Worst In Me
For the fans of: Body Count, Hacktivist, P.O.D, The Hell, Stuck Mojo
Listen: Facebook

Release date 31.10.2021
Suretone Records