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