Papa Roach - Getting Away With Murder

By Ahmad Zaki • UrbanWire
email reporter • email story • printer friendly version

“I will forgive, but I won’t forget, and I hope you know that you’ve lost my respect…”croons Papa Roach frontman, Jacoby Shaddix on ‘Blood’, the opening track of their newest album. A song about respect, responsibility and the bonds of relationship, it is the perfect kick-off to Getting Away with Murder, giving the listener a small taste of the emotions that can be found in the later tracks.

Getting Away with Murder is the quartet’s 4th album, and their 3rd under the Geffen Records label (their 1st album was a little known EP under DB Records entitled Potatoes For Christmas). Papa Roach, made up of singer Shaddix, guitarist Jerry Horton, bassist Tobin Esperance and drummer David Buckner, came to fame in mid 2000 with Infest and the hit single, ‘Last Resort’, which got them tagged with the nu-metal label. Shaddix has since dropped the rapping and joined the scream/sing contingent of Soil, Saliva, Slipknot, Amen, Ill Nino and other such hard-rocking bands that are popping up all over America.

Fans of Papa Roach will probably notice that Getting Away With Murder has more common with their second album LoveHateTragedy, than their first. It’s as if LoveHateTragedy was a musical experiment for the band in the realm of heavy metal and hard rock and they have, with Getting Away… decided to step away from the nu-metal genre once and for all and envelop themselves within the heavy metal/hard rock school of music. They also have subscribed to the hardcore genre’s principle of “No Guitar Solos”.

Shaddix uses Papa Roach and his music as a diary of a sort. Getting Away With Murder is an album of his personal reflections and of dealing with his inner demons. What he began in the depressive Infest, on tracks like ‘Broken Home’, ‘Binge’ and ‘Blood Brothers’, is continued and finished in this album, as can be seen in tracks like ‘Blood’ and ‘Be Free’. Getting Away With Murder is an album of new beginnings (‘Scars’), of closure (‘Done With You’), of climbing out of despair (‘Not Listening’) and of hope (‘Do or Die’). Judging by this album, Shaddix is probably the happiest that he has been for a while.

While most of the tracks consist of Papa Roach’s signature ferocious and explosive style, their second single, ‘Scars’, is a softer, angst rock tune that is more fitting for a band like Hoobastank. While some may consider this a sellout to get more airtime, ‘Scars’ is a song that is filled with so much ferocity, emotion and maturity that Hoobastank would be hard-pressed to match it. This song is Papa Roach, through and through.

In the album, Shaddix’s lyrical mastery is such that even someone like Trent Reznor would be impressed. In ‘Take Me’, he shouts: “I’m burning in the heavens and I’m drowning in the hells. And my soul is in a coma, and none of my friends can tell.”

If there is a flaw in this album, it lies within the repetitiveness of the tracks. More often than not, Shaddix ends up going through the chorus 3 or 4 times in a row. Ironically, it is this repetition that makes the songs so attractive and listenable. Driven by Shaddix’s heartfelt voice, the edgy, energetic drumbeats and the focussed riffs of the guitars, tracks like ‘Getting Away With Murder’ and ‘Be Free’ can be listened to over and over again, without the slightest notion of boredom.

This is perhaps the quality that makes Papa Roach so popular among the head-banging crowd. The foursome has, without a doubt, cemented their place in the hard rock hall of fame with this album. Along with Slipknot, Soil and Ill Nino, Papa Roach are ready to claim their title as the Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer of the new millennium.

The question is, of course, will Papa Roach, et al, survive for as long as their longhaired predecessors did?

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.