Is it time for another Papa Roach album already?
You can almost hear From Ashes To New going through a list as the album was mixed: Coolio-esque opening bars? Scratching? A rapped unclean vocal line? All check. If you like your music to bear all the hallmarks of white skaters doing hip hop, they do that very well, but it’s all a bit old hat – and a grubby beanie hat with holes in, at that. Still, there are some positives.
Lost And Alone leaves the turntables behind to bring in some double pedal work and a metalcore groove, and Face The Day, with its irregular beat and snarled vocals, is rather reminiscent of Northlane’s quirky, ambient sound. It’s also the heaviest song on the album, and the best.
Downfall continues in that vein as far as the intro, before that pesky sampling makes its way back in for the verse. But for all the clichés, Day One is a passable record that’s faithful to the nu metal genre, even if it probably was best left in 1999.
