Dropout Kings - Riot Music
Nu-metal is a genre of heavy music that I either really love or really hate, there’s no in between. It depends on the artist that can determine that, and in my last review, I talked about UnityTX’s debut album, Ferality, and I absolutely love that album. That’s a nu-metalcore album that works quite well, both for its sound and performances. It also never feels like the band is trying too hard, or trying to be something they aren’t, let alone (almost) every song sounding the same. It just hits so hard for me, but I mentioned that I was listening to other nu-metalcore albums. Another album I missed from last year was Dropout Kings’ Riot Music. If you don’t know who these guys are, I can’t blame you, because they’re kind of on the fringes of the genre, but they’ve been around since the late 2010s. These guys aren’t quite a nu-metalcore band, but they dabble in that style. They mainly keep their sound in the realms of rap-metal and nu-metal, but they got a few heavier moments.
They’ve only dropped two albums, including Riot Music, and an EP from a couple years back. I really enjoyed their debut, 2018’s Audiodope, but it took them an awfully long time to drop a follow-up. They did drop an EP in 2021, and I remember that was pretty good, but left me wanting more. I was happy to see they released a record, but I never listened to Riot Music when it came out last year. Nonetheless, it’s been on my radar for the longest time. I figured I’d dive into it now, since I got some more nu-metalcore albums on the docket, but how does this album stack up compared to the new UnityTX album that I was over the moon about?
Well, I like Riot Music, for the most part, but I still have some issues with this record. They don’t prevent me from listening to it, let alone enjoying it, but I do notice them quite easily. It’s funny, because some of the things I like here are also things that have problems at the same time. First and foremost, let’s look at its sound. This thing is mainly a nu-metal album with some rap-metal, hip-hop, and some metalcore, but it mainly sticks to one sound. That means this album kind of runs together, especially when a lot of the riffs and hooks sound the same. Only a couple songs really stray from its formula, and to be fair, it’s a good formula, but do I want to hear an entire album of it?
That depends, because if you like this sound, you’ll like listening to an album’s worth of it, but if not, it won’t stick with you. Some of this record sticks with me, and it helps that it’s 37 minutes, but a lot of it runs together. Its sound isn’t the only thing that runs together, but the vocals also run together. These guys have two vocalists, clean vocalist Adam Ramey and rapper Eddie Wellz. Ramey is a generic clean chorus guy, although he does contribute some harsh vocals from time to time and they’re fine, but he doesn’t stick out at all. Wellz is a good rapper, though, but his flows and his cadences throughout every track sound the same. The same goes for the hooks, whether they’re sung or rapped. They just run together, and not much sticks out at all that I want to go back to.
Nothing on here is awful, although the song with band DED is kind of lame. It’s a generic alt-metal song, but I digress. The lyrics on this album are worth talking about, too, as they aren’t very good. When I said the sound and vocals run together, they’re at least not half bad, but the lyrics on this album range from “okay” to utterly awful. These sound like they were written by an AI when it comes to writing a nu-metal album, because it all just sounds like tough guy bragging. There’s hardly any deep thought put into these, and that’s not to say all music needs to be deep, but this isn’t even clever. A lot of the lyrics here are just lazy, like the hook of “Fighter Jet” is saying that the narrator is “as flier than the wings of a fighter jet,” or the song “Hey Uhh” has a hook where the last words of each line are “hey uh.” If you think that gets annoying, it does.
This is an album that’s fun and generic, but it offers nothing else. UnityTX had a diverse sound that offered more than just the same riffs and hooks recycled throughout its runtime, and their vocalist was more versatile than utilizing the same styles of clean, harsh, or rapped vocals, and the lyrics were more than just mindless bragging that doesn’t amount to anything. In other words, if you want something fun, albeit forgettable, you’ll have fun with this. I have fun with it when I play it, but I always have to remind myself to listen to it. I don’t immediately go back to it, because I’m so excited to play it again, if that makes sense. It’s worth a listen, but that might be all you need if you don’t care for this sound too much.
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Top 15 Metal Albums of 2023
(This is in order of release this year. Otherwise, I love them all the same.)
Celestial Rot by All Out War
Death Below by August Burns Red
Remember... You Must Die by Suicide Silence
Scorched by Overkill
War Remains by Enforced
Showdown by Rise of the Northstar
Step Into the Light by The Acacia Strain
Reborn Superstar! by Hanabie.
The Unknown by Evile
Truth Killer by Sevendust
Make Them Beg For Death by Dying Fetus
The Above by Code Orange
Necromanteum by Carnifex
Ruiner by Krieg
Baby Eater Witch by Black Knife
Runners-Up:
(Not quite as good as the main entries, but still worth mentioning.)
Foregone by In Flames
Boundless Domain by Creeping Death
Coronet Juniper by Gridlink
Ferality by UnityTX
Hymns From the Apocrypha by Suffocation
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