Nonpoint
Recoil
Lava Records
When I first heard of Nonpoint, I was expecting thrash-metal with unintelligible lyrics and speed chords that would lump this quartet with all the other generic angry-white-boy metal. Instead, I got another of the hundreds of bands that try to sound pissed off but end up sounding reserved and corporate. And I can still lump them with the hundreds of other angry-white-boy metal bands that all sound the same!
Recoil’s first single, “The Truth,” provides the blueprint for corporate hard rock. The song consists of a hard rock riff that I believe has been heard on at least one Nickelback tune and a chorus that is a total of two notes with fatuous lyrics that mean absolutely nothing (“If we only know the truth about it”).
However, “Rabia” proves that Nonpoint has some innovation. Lead singer Elias Soriano yells the entire song, whose title means “rage,” in Spanish. Nonpoint also throws in a cryptic cover of Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight,” and Marilyn Manson-ize it. It is a decent remake of an ’80s pop classic, sounding as if Nonpoint combined “In the Air Tonight” with Manson’s “The Beautiful People” and added a catchier chorus.
For those who have not heard Nonpoint, they are very similar to Sevendust. But just like Sevendust, they have drifted toward sounding angry because they have to, not because they are. This makes Recoil hollow and forced rather than genuinely angst-ridden.
Nonpoint: http://www.nonpoint.com
