Godsmack: Awake : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

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The elements will be familiar to any Ozzfest attendee: bulldozer bottom with occasional slap-bass reverb, guitars that sound like percussion instruments, and a deranged singer spinning tales of woe and lamentation while dangling precariously from Beelzebub's pitchfork. Boston-based Godsmack aren't nearly as musically adventurous or aggressively misogynist as some of their aggro-rock brethren, which may explain the mainstream acceptance of the quartet's triple-platinum 1998 major-label debut. The formula is repeated on Awake, a collection of muscle-bound hard-rock cliches and unrelentingly downcast, generic lyrics. Singer Sully Erna declares he's "sick of my life" and "all I feel is hate" with a voice born to growl, but his narratives lack the scary specificity of a true head case like Korn's Jonathan Davis. Rivet-gun verses continually shift into droning choruses with vague Middle Eastern shadings, punctuated by wah-wah guitar solos. Though Erna sings that he's "sick and tired of making the same mistakes," Godsmack's carefully calculated music suggests they've never made a rash move in their lives.

GREG KOT

(Posted: Nov 9, 2000)

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5of 5 Stars

Positively saved my sanity after being de-energized and used as [he] turned his back on me after all we'd been through. Sully's writings soothed the withdrawl into a new--independent me...

Aug 30, 2006 13:57:16

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