Dear Swollen Members,
I bought, not downloaded, your new album, ‘Armed to the Teeth’. I’ve given it several listen-throughs, and not half-assed listen-throughs while doing other things, but actual, concentrated listening, so believe me when I say I’ve given it a fair chance.
I hate it. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever done. It is an enormous step backward from ‘Black Magic’ in every sense.
Lyrically, the new album hurts me. Almost physically. What happened to the intellectualism? The D&D-playing bookworms? How do you go from this three years ago:
Asymmetrical trajectory as seen by Galileo Ride the horse color pale, reminiscent of Rembrandt Pyrokinesis, enjoy the taste of the kickback Red forbidden planet, amulets that conjure souls Doomed to float forever in the threshold of the crossroads
to
Last night I left the club with a pornstar, she gets around, but I like the way she go hard, yeah, left the club with a pornstar, love to get down, but I like the way she go hard.
You can get a pornstar, you can get a stripper, but I know the difference when it’s quicker on the zipper, she likes it a little thicker, she’s a nasty freak, my energizer bunny she could last for weeks, she can buy her own drinks, she can spin on them poles, she’s a real professional when she hops out them clothes…
I’m a real high rock, I’m a hip hop rock star, we on the block, throwing rocks at cop cars, getting my buzz on, drinking a rock star, my girl wild, ya she party like a rock star, yaaaa, party like a rock star, pound like a pornstar, lamboghini doors, 24’s on my form car, my crew all thugs and goons, we got war scars and everytime I leave the club I got 4 broads, maybe more broads cause we goes hard, busting nuts, popping shots and a ghost car. We getting high like the drace space coaster, come on show some pride and throw your fucking west coast up. ?
Gee, I like the way you rhymed ‘porn star’ with ‘rockstar’, in both its beverage AND personal iterations. And don’t forget ‘car’ with ‘car’ and ‘broads’ with ‘broads’, which is right on par with Evanescence rhyming ‘me’ with ‘me’, except Evanescence is a shitacular pop-rock-faux-goth-I’m-sooo-vewwy-vewwy-sad-all-the-time band and you guys are supposed to be RAPPERS. Rhyming is what you DO.
Were you going for a rap-metal sound with that song? For fuck’s sake, you might as well just give up and collaborate with Fred Durst and all of you can do it for the nookie and cookies and milk. And auto-tune? Really? Not only are you not Rihanna, but it’s about six years removed from sounding fresh. Yes, as artists, use the tools available. Please don’t abuse the tools available, and recognize that when you hop on a trend a decade after the fact, it reflects negatively on you.
Guys, this album hurts because it feels like a cash-grab. It’s so mainstream, and I don’t just mean you’ve turned your back on your signature style; it’s mainstream in the sense that it has embraced all of the negative things in rap culture–glorifying violence, drug use and greediness, demeaning women, advocating violence against gays and using expletives as placeholders. I fucking don’t have a fucking problem with fucking swearing but fuck, be fucking constructive with it, for fuck’s sake. You’re better than that. You’re also better than using the same shitty shit shit shit guitar riff in two separate tracks. (See? I can do it, too.) And if you’ve got to reach into the archives to grab a track you put on a b-side album to make this new one recognizable to fans or as filler, maybe you should’ve taken another year off and worked on some more material. I’ll still check out Beautiful Death Machine when it comes out next year, but my hopes aren’t high. If you wanted to lower the bar, this was a fantastic way to do it.
Stop making me sad.
Love,
Mellzah Dildarian
I’ve noticed the rhyming same-words with each other in a bunch of rap songs lately. def pet peeve of mine now.
Maybe if they spent a little less time rehearsing the tour for cribs and wrote some damn lyrics once in a while…
“Check it, check it, this is my gilt-edge rhyming dictionary, I keep it next to my crystal toilet.”
You’d especially think they’d do better on lyrics when you consider that lyrics are the entirety of the genre.
Urrrg – think I’ll skip that one. As for b-side songs, though? Talk Show Host by Radiohead remains the best one, like, EVAR.
Hey, I love SM’s B-side album but I think it’s telling if they used a b-side from a decade ago to fill space on an A-side disc.
True.
I think you should send this letter.
What the hell is with auto-tune becoming so popular lately. Tokio Hotel apparently figured it out and their latest album is more or less ‘how alien can we make Bill sound?’. It’s like being in the ’90’s again.
I also second actually sending in the letter f’reals.
Armed to the Teeth SUCKS
I have been listening to Swollen since day one and have every album release and most 12″s. They have crazy talent, that is without doubt and certainly know their business. BUT this release is absolutely awful!!! They are either (a) trying to hard to push the boundaries and have lost focus (b) caught up in a style and delivery that is simply damn right shockingly crap. Its hard to listen to Prevail and Madchild delivering such limited lyrics with awkward flows when I know damn well they have skills to rip tracks apart. As for the production, I rate it on the same level, poor, unimaginative and lacking creativity. This is a serious ‘loss of focus’ album and is not due to me un-accustomed to change. My whole crew and I have been down with these boys through thick and thin (Heavy was shite also). It really doesn’t help having the appallingly weak duo Tre Nyce and Young Kahz so much, to think Madchild started with such ill collaborations i.e. Q Bert and now who the f’k are these 2? What happened to the misguided angel in ‘Strength’ and prevail busting about readin literature to improve his verses? Wasted! This album and their delivery to me is the same as what all the current wack rappers are doing now. Swollen, sort it out and gate back on track!!!!! Terrible!
Re: Armed to the Teeth SUCKS
I completely agree. I also think Tre Nyce sounds like a poor man’s Swifty McVeigh, which really isn’t saying much for him. He’s certainly no good replacement for Moka Only.
Totally Agree
hey man.
im with you in some sense… one… yes they did sell out a bit… and def. took a little bit away from their music…
but you have to consider their intentions… are they trying to become the famous and rich rappers that they wanted to be or are “they going back to the people that supported them from the beginning”
i understand your frustrations.. and i cant say that i hate the music.. but its for sure not swollen style.
im hoping that with the addition of tech9 to the band that it doesnt hurt their lyrics any more than it already has.
i have always looked forward to the intellectual rhymes of prevail, and the mind blowing flows of madchild! this didnt seem to have much of that at all.
but here is a thought to ponder… didnt the same thing happen when they had that douche bag ” moka only” rapping with them…. that was a fucking joke too!
either way.. my love for swollen will never die… but lets take it back to the basics! whoo!
Crap Album
I’m totally with you dude. I hadn’t heard their album and was the first show on their ATT tour. I was sooooo disappointed with Trey Nyce, and everything he seemed to drive. BUT. And this is a big but. I think I know what happened.
If you will notice Battle Axe is NOT the record label anymore. I think this is because the primary business man in the group who started Battle Axe, namely Mad Child, fell into a pill addiction that cost him (he says) 2million and change. If you go to their youtube page you will see him talk about it. He never was as intellectual as Prevail was, so he kinda comes off as a….goon? But he has heart and energy and talent. I think though their going to another label and possibly having to collaborate with another guy is the reason for the weak tracks.
I could be wrong but I sure hope I am not. I hope they get the money to put Battle Axe back together and go back to their roots of dark, moody lyrics that remind one of Autumn Pacific Northwest nights.
Re: Crap Album
Mad Child absolutely has heart and energy and talent; he has raw passion that really balances Prevail’s more heady intellectualism, and in that sense it wasn’t fair of me to take him to task in this post by comparing his lyrics to some of Prevail’s earlier work. However, when Mad Child is on top of his game, some of his lyrics have been my favorites, and in this respect it does seem that he has gotten lazy or has lost focus.
Part of that is surely the drug addiction–I can’t imagine needing anything so badly that it’s the last thing I think of before I go to sleep, the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning, and what occupies all of my thoughts between thoughts, something with such a powerful grip I’d give up everything and anything for it, and that sort of addiction has to take its toll, not only on Mad Child but on everyone around him.
Losing Battle Axe had to have been demoralizing, but I think that Trey Nyce has had an even more negative influence on the band. I read an interview with Mad Child saying that it used to take him days to come up with one verse he was happy with, that he would agonize over the writing process, but Trey taught him how to come up with 3-4 verses a day. Unfortunately, that just means he’s being less discriminating and Trey is encouraging it. I sincerely hope that Trey grows a massive ego and leaves the band to go do his autotune act solo, because I think that’s the only way we’re going to see more of the Swollen Members we really love. Swollen Members are Swollen Members with or without Moka Only but they’re not Swollen Members with Trey Nyce.