Hollywood Undead is a band that fuses rock with hip-hop, as you probably know, so I'm not really gonna get into that. This is their second studio album, disregarding the last album they put out as it was mostly a live/cover album, and sometime after their debut 'Swan Songs', members Johnny 3 Tears and Deuce got into a fight, and Deuce got kicked out. Over what reasons? I don't know, don't even care.
After losing such a vital member to the group, as Deuce sang all of the choruses, they recruited Daniel Murillo, nicknamed 'Danny' in the group because they're clever or something, from the band Lorene Drive.
So all in all, this combined with the new masks they have, creates the new face of HU.
Alright, now onto this album.Well, it isn't 'Swan Songs'. They went on tour with the heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold before recording this album, and I guess that made them think "Hey, we have guitars, we can do rock too!" so the album is much, much more rock-oriented than the last album, to the point where it almost sounds annoying because Charlie and J-Dog can't really play much on their guitars, and they never even do a guitar solo or anything interesting of the sort, so when they try to do 'anthems' as I imagine they called them in the studio when they were making them, it just ends up being more and more of the same.
The beats really aren't that terribly special either. Deuce used to make all of their old beats, and since they have new producers, it just isn't the same at all. The songs are much more rock-oriented than before, like I said, which at times makes it awkward to hear them rap over. 'them' is the wrong word here, as the album is mostly the Johnny 3 Tears show as it almost sounds like he went into the studio and said "I hate all of you! I want to be the only one on this album!.. Okay, you can have a few spots, but this is about me!"
Probably mad that his ex-best friend Deuce gave him a cleft butthole or something. If someone hasn't urinated in this man's cheerios yet, I sincerely hope they do in the near future.
Douchebag.What's sad is, I'm really not exaggerating. I can only remember hearing J-Dog and Funny Man once or twice on this album, Charlie has almost as many appearances as J3T does, but Charlie has this habit of "If Johnny's being an annoying, angsty, retarded little guy, I guess I gotta be too!" so I really only like Charlie when he's on non-serious tracks, like 'Apologize' and 'Coming In Hot'.
There are hardly any straight-up hip-hop tracks on this, which sucks, because that's the thing they do best.
I know, I have to get into this eventually: Danny and Deuce. Danny can sing much better than Deuce could, but Danny's voice doesn't really fit some of the songs, where as Deuce sounded completely in sync with the band's sound. But then again, not much of a big deal, because they kind of sound the same for the most part and you wouldn't notice that much if you didn't know Deuce was replaced.
There aren't very many memorable tracks on here, where as their debut 'Swan Songs' had many, hell, I remember probably every track on that one, but I can only really remember a few on here if I'm not listening to it, and those are the songs that don't take themselves that seriously, and don't turn into emotional songs. You're a hip-hop/rock band, not an emo/alternative rock band, guys, remember that.
I just ripped into this album, but would you like it if you already liked HU? Probably so. Don't get me wrong, I like a few songs on here, but there just isn't much keeping me coming back to the whole album.
But hey, it beats what Deuce is currently doing with 9LIVES, what with their constant whining and moaning about how much HU sucks, while singing/rapping over other people's songs.
6/10
Recommended track(s): Levitate, Apologize
