Papa Roach: Getting Away With Murder : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

With every passing day, rap metal is seeming more and more like a bad high school joke. But Papa Roach have hung in there by turning out catchy hard rock that's as muscular as vintage Motorhead. Getting Away With Murder, the band's fourth album (and first completely rhyme-free disc), doesn't have the Ginsu-sharp impact of 2002's Lovehatetragedy, but almost every song features a skull-rattling groove and one or two darkly melodic hooks. On the title track, Jacoby Shaddix drops a singsong chorus over a chugging electro-riff that's more Ministry than Iron Maiden; "Be Free" begins with an I-got-wasted narrative that might have come from the Offspring if it weren't for the pile-driving dose of AA-meeting-worthy self-loathing. That's the way it is with Papa Roach: You accept Shaddix's functional dysfunction because the songs rock so smartly.