Above The Noise

by

The Revolution Smile

Edit

Revolution Smile caused quite a comotion when Fred Durst kidnapped them from his sworn enemies in Buddyhead (an independent label), who constantly tease and taunt Durst in the Gossip section of their website (they even snuck into his office and stole one of his red caps). Obviously since they share the same label as Puddle Of Mudd, people will assume there are similarities, but to the contrary, Revolution Smile possess a far more interesting sound. Lead by former Far guitarist Shaun Lopez, Revolution Smile's first (and only) album for Durst's imprint Flawless is a nice change of pace for rock music. Bringing back the melodic hard-rock style of early Filter, the gritty, start-stop of Helmet, and with enough weird song titles to make the Deftones jealous, Revolution Smile have created an album that will please just about any fan of (dare I say) nu-metal. The fact that this can be labeled as nu-metal does not make it bad at all; It is one of the best nu-metal releases of 2003. Surely with all of the wretched clones out there, it's refreshing to hear a band do the genre justice. Fans of Far might feel a little alienated, as Lopez has a far different singing style than that of his former boss Jonah Matranga and the music in general is a little more rough around the edges. But all in all, Revolution Smile has an engaging sound. They know how to rock and they do it well and with some great hooks. It's a wonder why this disc never got it's fair spin when it came out. Unfortunately, they have been dropped from their label not even a year after the release of this album. Too bad. Fred Durst had a gem here. I guess he can fill up his Flawless roster with more Nirvana impersonators instead?

I bought this album used, which is the way I think it should be bought. It isn't worth more then five bucks in all. I don't mean that overly negatively, it's just that this album doesn't have the umph it takes to make me fork over more then pocket change. I think the best way to sum up the sound of the Revolution Smile is if you were to take Josey Scott from Saliva doing one of their more mellow songs, on stage with Filter. Make any sense? How about this, if you are a fan of the Filter progression of things, meaning sweet vocals over acoustic guitar that blends into heavy yelling over distortion. In fact, now that I think about it, this album really does sound like a Filter album...huh? Anyways, there really aren't any standout tracks I can point you towards, "Cadilliac Ass" is cool and "Alien" ain't bad. Of course you'll want to sample the single "bonethrower" before you buy this used. If you want to understand why I keep comparing them to Filter listen to "I wish I" that about sums it up. Listen, if this sounds interesting or you like one of the samples, buy it used for a couple bucks, just be prepared to listen to it for a week and then lose it.