01. Manimal 02. The Hangman 03. Blind Dog 04. Slayer To The System 05. Fairytopia 06. Party Right 07. Brand New Jesus 08. World Underground 09. Nevermore 10. Victim Of Downturn 11. Wrong (Depeche Mode Cover)
Rhyme play a blend of hard rock and nu-ish metal that will be familiar to those who've listened to their share of popular metal albums from the 90s. They even say they play "90s metal," by which they probably meant "90s pop metal." It's grunge and GnR-inspired, slightly Load-y, slightly anthemic and slightly cheesy sounding stuff.
Before you all jab at those close-a-tab X's though, gotta know that these guys have done a solid job pulling that style off. Yeah, this can get a bit preachy and, yeah, their play style can get a bit boring after a while, but the number of chunky and catchy riffs, and the number of electrifying solos on this make it worth a spin. They're talented dudes.
It's just, it's all a little too tame sounding. It's kind of like a zoo tiger, like that. It's got a ferocious animal in it somewhere, it's easy to tell, but it's been trained to keep it bottled up. At least that's the way it seems when you go to the zoo, because your mom will only take you after she gets off work when all the cool animals are already asleep, and you ask her "don't you love me enough to take off work so I can see the fun animals?" and she silently buys you old cotton candy to pacify you while you look at some penguins. The musicianship here feels tamed by the production and tamed by maybe just a little too much practice from the lead guitarist. It'd be cooler to see it explode into, say, the focused rage of a wildebeest-murdering tiger, or the sort of homophobic fury like a Sigfried and Roy tiger, rather than just the by-the-books, for-mass-appreciation stuff highlighted here.
Nevertheless, it all sounds good enough. Boundaries might not be pushed (let alone approached) on this, and your cerebellums definitely won't be charged, even a little, by it, but there's a good chance that your neck muscles will be.
