It’s 2017. Nu Metal is still here. It’s not exactly ‘nu’ any more, but the point is, despite a slump and backlash phase, it’s actually properly back as ‘a thing’. Papa Roach, to their credit, stand as survivors, having never actually gone away. And so here they are, throwing down album number nine.
‘Crooked Teeth’ is brimming with big, anthemic numbers, boasting immense, arena-sized choruses. There are a handful of rap interjections, which do sound pretty dated. Perhaps that’s part of the appeal and in some way accounts for the nu-metal renaissance: the kids of the late 90s are now old enough to be feeling nostalgic for their youth and the music that stands as synonymous with those formative years. That sense of nostalgia also trickles from the album itself: ‘I’m still haunted by the best years of my life’, Jacoby Shaddix pines on ‘Sunrise Trailer Park’.
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‘Traumatic’ brings some angst which revives the early spirit, but for the most part, ‘Crooked Teeth’ is pretty tame: the autotuned soft rock of ‘Periscope’ is dubious at best, coming on like Chicago updated for the Kerrang! Radio generation via bands like PVRIS, who aren’t a rock band however you slant it. In fact, whatever your stance on nu-metal / rap-metal / sports metal on its emergence and however much you may have loved or loathed it at the time, it’s hard to deny that it did at least plough a new musical furrow. ‘Crooked Teeth’ offers nothing new, and sadly, lacks – dare I say it – teeth, crooked or otherwise.
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