Altsounds - Drowning Pool - Full Circle [CD]

Two albums and two frontmen later and Dallas 4-piece Drowning Pool are still trying to match the winning formula that earned them the high kudos of their impossible to dislike debut ‘Sinner’. After the untimely death of original frontman Dave Williams in 2002 the band hired lacklustre vocalist and former tattoo artist Jason ‘Gong’ Jones who featured on their widely panned second album ‘Desensitized’, in all honesty the only track worth listening to off the whole thing is the cheesy fist pumping single ‘Step Up’ which even though it was pretty fun did lack the heart and general relevance that their fans had become used to. Now with ex SOiL lead singer Ryan McCombs onboard for apparently permanent duties, new album ‘Full Circle’ has been hyped as a fresh start for a band who have endured much turmoil in their days, unfortunately, it’s nothing to get that excited about.

I guess I’m not really off to a good start with this, I always detested SOiL with a passion and it mainly came down to the vocals, to me Ryan McCombs always sounded like an inbred hybrid of David Draiman (Disturbed) and Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam). Drowning Pool do require a strong voice for the strong music they have been known to produce and in many peoples eyes McCombs may be an ideal candidate, without being a party pooper I don’t think I could disagree more.

I’m all for bands expanding their sound and moving into new area’s of music but when another metal band of yesteryear attempt to reignite the flame they once had with a bunch of soft and boring acoustic themed tracks to raise lighters in stadiums and record sales to the middle aged dad rock crowd, it’s time to start shaking your head. ‘Paralyzed’, ‘No More’ and the awfully named ‘Soldiers’ are all nails in the coffin of this once great heavy as fuck band, they sound like SOiL mixed with Staind and are about as inspiring as burnt toast. The heavier themed tracks like ‘Full Circle’ and ‘Enemy’ are all pretty standard really, hard hitting riffs and well sung vocals (I guess) but nothing that makes you want to scream and shout, the problem being mainly is that this sounds like an album that was recorded in 2000 at the height of the nu-metal revolution, it could easily be one of those records you pull off your shelf when your feeling reminiscent about the old days like ‘Follow The Leader’ or ‘Significant Other’, sadly as this is 2008 and people who buy this will probably already own the aforementioned LP’s, you probably aren’t going to be reaching for ‘Full Circle’ in too much of a hurry.