Album Review: Attila 'Guilty Pleasure'

Man, these guys are smart.??

At some point in their career, Attila must have realized that there never really was much of a divide between the late 90's heyday of nu-metal bands like Limp Bizkit and modern metal stars like Emmure.

By taking the very worst qualities of every band that has ever been featured on Ozzfest, where the 'parental advisory' sticker was a badge of honor, and putting them in a blender, Attila is literally begging to be sh*t on by elitist music reviewers like myself.??

As you can tell by a recent MetalSucks review of Guilty Pleasure's teaser tracks, reviewers have been pretty good at taking the bait and playing into Atilla's brilliant marketing gimmick: the press hates Attila and the press can suck Attila's d*ck.??

All of this - the album's title and the Norman Mailer-esque move of blurbing the bad reviews of the band's last album, About That Life - makes Guilty Pleasure essentially review proof.

But that's okay, because elitist jokes about how Attila fans probably can't even read anyway can always be inserted.

??Onto the music itself, Guilty Pleasure is largely comprised of breakdowns, surprisingly good guitar solos, more breakdowns, raps that were perfectly described by Decibel as "whiter than freshly fallen snow" and more breakdowns.

The key to Attila's songwriting formula is to make each breakdown anthemic/funny, even if that means borrowing from other bands.

Keeping in mind California's Elysia is lost to history, there is no doubt that they're definitely the band that came up with the "who's the f*ggot now" breakdown in "Proving Grounds." Moreover, that "we just want to drink BEEEEEERRRR!" part in "Dirty Dirty" may sound a little familiar.

??One critical argument that's frequently leveled at Attila is that they - you know - make albums with just one open-E chug riff. That has a certain amount of validity in terms of songwriting, but it's not like anyone in the band doesn't know how to play their instrument or anything.

You could say guitarist Chris Linck is wasting his talent here, but then think about how much money he can make in Attila as opposed to smaller, but more critically acclaimed band X. Why frontman Chris Fronzak has all but abandoned his legitimately fearsome growl for whiny faux-rap makes no sense at all from a musical perspective, but totally does from a commercial, money-making perspective.??

The final verdict on Guilty Pleasure is that although it's quite definitively bad, it might actually be...good, by deathcore standards anyway, considering it sounds a little bit different than most of the bands in that genre. Either way, it's party music.

It doesn't need to be analyzed, just like it doesn't need to hurt anyone's feelings for being a "disgrace to music" or whatever.

After all, everyone who's too young to remember Limp Bizkit is going to need their own band to look back and laugh at.