TruthMedia Review: Reanimation by Lincoln Park

Overview: A new cd by the up and coming rap group shifts the focus away from music and on to crap. Taking what little talent they showed on their last CD and throwing it in the toilet, the band has chosen to make this record a remix album. Yawn. Produced By: Davis Geffen Records. The Pros: LP adds their own spicy flare to mainy hits of today. Also, it ends. The Cons:The Park ruins any and all hope of becoming a mainstream success. Annoying beats, irritating vocals, processed crap. It seems they've doomed themselves to be played only by DJs in underground clubs forever.

Just look at their faces. So filled with pain. Obviously even they are disappointed with this album.Lincoln Park is an up and coming young band from Detroit who seem to be garnering some popularity in the world of underground punk rock. Despite the disappointing sales of their last album, Hybrid Theorum, the band presses forward through adversity and maintains a strong local fanbase and rigorous touring schedule. The band's latest effort is "Reanimation," a series of remixes the band did to get accepted by a more mainstream audience. The band's effort is valiant, and they certainly deserve at least a C for effort. This CD has a fairly decent number of tracks, some of which are very danceable. But overall, the album itself smacks of poor production value and limited appeal that will most likely hinder the final sales numbers.

Instead of an album full of new songs, the band opted to use this venture as a vehicle to remix the songs of other artists. While the idea is novel, the lack of original tunes is the first of many reasons one would want to avoid this EP. Containing remixes of popular tracks such as Limp Bizkit's smash hit "Crawling," Korn's "Without You," and even tracks by lesser known acts such as Taproot and Finger Eleven, the album does have a certain ammount of star power. In theory, this might have made a good compilation of tracks from the pop-rock world. Unfortunately, the band's lack of technical skill has resulted in a long list of very sloppy songs, muddled with static and riled with effects from what sounds like a cheap Casio keyboard. I'm sorry to disappoint you Lincoln Park fans (called Parker Brothers) out there, but you're just going to be very unimpressed by this new release.

Even the most hardcore of you Parker Brothers out there are going to have a hard time listening to the trite presented by this band. First of all, before even opening the CD, you'll notice the terrible spelling in the track listing on the back. Spelled completely fonetically, the names are all a mess. You'd think they could hire an editor or at least use a spell cheque, but I suppose not. Once you put it in your CD player, things just get worse. How I long for the days of the Sex Pistols or the Cure, punk bands who knew what it meant to be punk. Not like these wannabees. Many of the songs were ruined by mixing in elements of hip-hop into them. Now, call me closed minded, but I think rap should stay in the rap world. When I hear the song "In the end," I want to hear the smooth vocals that were originally written by Layne Staley, not this trite. Look at this new hip hop line, and just think about how tacked on it sounds.

"Forefit the game, before someone taked you out of the game. Cover up your case, you can't run the pace, it's just too fast for you too, lass."

Thank you, Mr. black rapper guy, but I don't think the song needed your help. When are people going to realize that some things are better left alone?

Heading up the remix work is former Executioner Mike Shinoda, and Lincoln Park DJ Mr. Kahn (who obviously has watched a little too much Star Trek for his own good LOL). These to blunderheads obviously don't have the first idea what it means to mix a track. They should get a clue from DJ Clue, and start working harder. A lot of this stuff is just the old songs with distracting, unnecesary turntable scratching and track reversing. Not exactly rocket science, or even music for that matter. It's something more like...oh, what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah - "Shit". They actually had the gall to change the vocals on the songs. Now, while I think it's ok to mix music sometimes, mixing the vocalist's work is just wrong. It's just so much harder to sing than it is to play guitar or drums that I think it should be respected and left alone.

The worst part? Everything.Beyond the album itself, the recent video for "Crawling" has been airing on MTV. And I must say, what crappy stuff. The tie in with the Final Fantasy movie is a stupid move, seeing how it was out of theaters months ago. And what's the deal with all those floating heads? I mean, who're they supposed to be? One looks sort of like a guy from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, but the rest are just totally crappy jobs and look nothing like the characters they're meant to represent. Mr. Kahn directed the video, and it's pretty obvious that he didn't know where to start. I'd say he should stick to DJing, but like I said before, he isn't very good at that either. Maybe he should quit altogether and become a professional guitarist. His guitar work on the album is actually fairly decent, and it's a shame the man doesn't want to stick to it.

All of you Parker Brothers out there are probably very upset by this review. But trust me guys, I hate to say it, but you're all going to be unhappy. It's no secret that this album is make or break for the career of these struggling young "artists," and with what I've heard, you can expect that we won't be hearing from them very much at all after. Limited mainstream appeal aside, the work on here just isn't very good. Maybe underground trance clubs will use it once in a while, but even they will probably try to hold back because of the recording quality. Overall, it wasn't worth the limited effort the band put into it. And it certainly isn't worth your hard earned money.

Each category in the rating system is based out of a possible 10 score (10 being the best). The overall score is based out of a possible 50 score (50 being the best).

Questions, comments? Send us an email to: TruthMedia Editor

– TruthMedia Editor