This is a band that seemed to suddenly pop up during the tailend o’ the era o’ nu-metal in 2008 with their song “Bump” & later their only single “Bartender ( Sittin’ At a Bar )” playing on my local rock station a few times… & then they disappeared. I mean, they continued to release records during the 2010s, — albeit, losing their big record label after their album after this 1 & with a short breakup in the middle — but I don’t know o’ anyone who listened to them. I certainly ne’er listened to them, & I’m probably the only 1 ’mong you readers who have listened to this album. It is precisely because o’ this obscurity & my own history copying songs from this album onto my mix CDs — as well as just how weird some o’ the songs on this album are — that I’ve decided to bring attention to this forgotten relic.

Arguably this isn’t really nu-metal, but I’ve already established long ago how inclusive this series is. It’s mo’ like country rap-rock, which, ironically, makes it less an outdated-when-it-came-out nu-metal holdo’er & mo’ a before-its-time prescience o’ bro country. In fact, I was struck by how many times this band’s lead singer, Danny “Boone” Alexander sounds like that nasally guy from Florida Georgia Line. They certainly took mo’ influence from their fellow Georgian Atlantic rappers than most nu-metal bands. Unfortunately, I can’t stand bro country, so that endears my heart to this album less than it had when I was a teenager & blissfully ignorant o’ such symphonies as “Knockin’ Boots”.

This album actually has 2 versions: the original 2005 & the later release under a big label with Bartender ( Sittin’ At a Bar )” thrown in in 2008. Since the latter is the version I listened to as a teen, it’ll be the 1 I’ll review, but because I’m particularly nice I’ll also review the 2005 tracks left off the 2008 version as a bonus @ the end.

1. Let’em Know ( feat. Steaknife & D. Jones )

So, I didn’t remember this song till now — but unlike most o’ the songs in which I say that, I’m surprised I don’t remember this goofy-ass song. Featuring D. Jones & “Steaknife” straight outta Appalachia, this song is all ’bout how cool these rock rappers are with badass lines like these:

kiss my acrobat & my soda crack my B-U-T-T butty whack
yo ma’ yo pa’ yo gritty granny with her hose in a panty
& a big behind like Frankenstein rock the beat down Sesame Street

Most bad rap lines are rappers clearly trying to force a line, but here I don’t think Sesame Street rhymes with anything, so the only explanation is that the main rapper here really wanted you to know that they rock the beat down Sesame Street. “Butty whack”, whate’er that is, doesn’t really rhyme with “panty”, either. Also, maybe I didn’t read it carefully ’nough, but I don’t remember Mary Shelly describing Dr. Frankenstein as having all that much girth in his loins, same for the creature he spawned.

& yet those may not be the worst lines in this song:

had the class & the teacher bouncing in kindergarten
then i slapped her on her ass & she said, <I beg your pardon>

Call me prudish, but I don’t particularly get stimulated by the image o’ young children being traumatized by watching their teacher be sexually assaulted. E’en if consensual, wait till the kids go out to recess to do that shit.

It doesn’t help that the song starts with this:

all the children went to heaven
won’t be back til 10 after 11

As for the sound, — ¡’cause the beat could totally save these lyrics! — it’s generic 2000s ringtone beats.

Grade: F

2. Bump

This song is the only reason I e’er listened to this album in the 1st place, being my introduction to it on the radio. Tho this song is goofy with its prechorus sang by a robot & its ultimate whiteboy lyrics trying to sound cool while using faux-Eminem “the illest, the killest, the skill of the willest” speedyboy rappin’ — with lines like “all day smokin’ herb, a tad bit disturbed, yes sir, absurd, don’t know when the curse occurred”, made funnier with the heavy Southern accent really strengthening those ending “uuurrs” — & using the word “bump” while rapping ’bout smoking weed, which is also the ultimate in counterintuitive, not the least o’ which ’cause weed is the opposite o’ a drug that makes you bump, I still like this song, mainly due to its, well, bumping beat & electronic riffs. Also, while most o’ the lyrics are corny, I do like the chorus, starting with the imagist line, “black tree silhouetted against an orange sky”, being myself a pothead who likes to gaze @ nature.

Fun trivia fact: I actually heard this live back in 2008 in 1 o’ the few times I saw what could be called a live concert when my mom took me to the local hemp fest & they happened to be playing there.

Grade: B

3. Chest Pain

While this song ne’er stuck in my mind as much as “Bump”, — & as far as I know, was ne’er a single — this song was apparently good ’nough for my teenaged self to add to 1 o’ the mix discs I made when I ripped these songs off the CD I downloaded from the library; & listening to it again after probably a’least a few years o’ it languishing ’mong the 10s o’ thousands o’ MP3s, OGGs, & FLACs languishing in my music folder & paying mo’ attention to its lyrics, I can’t help noticing that the lyrics are much better written & the music lacks the cringier elements that “Bump” has. The chorus’s fast-paced sputtering works with this song’s theme o’ being drugged out o’ one’s mind. E’en the 3rd verse, the goofiest verse, with its blathering ’bout Nostradamus & there being “more religions than park pigeons”, makes sense in context, since it’s the conspiratorial ravings o’ someone high. There’s also mo’ variation in terms o’ flow, with the singer/rapper smoothly wavering within the gray area ’tween singing & rapping.

The problem with this song is that the instrumentation sounds stock, which really drags down the song. Listening to this song feels like sitting in a cheap, white trash house while drinking Walmart beer to stave off boredom, which is both perfectly fitting for this song, & also makes me not love listening to it that much. It’s perfectly tolerable, ’course — nothing compared to the Puddle of Mudd & Saliva trash I listened to in previous months. & the praise I gave was mo’ in comparison to the songs we’ve heard earlier: situational “comedy” ’bout some cracker on drugs raving ’bout nonsense & being a loser college dropout isn’t a fresh concept; & making a song ’bout doing drugs having a crazy chorus & going all o’er the place is textbook song writing. The (həd)^p.e. album we looked @ back in March did the same many times, & those songs had far mo’ excitement to them & went harder.

Grade: B

4. Graffiti The World

While the metaphor o’ pollution being graffiti on the world & mocking anti-graffiti authorities for being hypocrites for attacking graffiti while filling the ocean with countless plastics are good, creative points, unfortunately the composer couldn’t stay on topic & meanders into lame boomer complaints like whining ’bout taking prayer out o’ schools & how the youth are ( purportedly ) becoming mo’ suicidal, & then devolves e’en mo’ into mo’ stupidity, like complaining ’bout the existence online port… — ridiculously hypocritical from a band that makes a bunch o’ sex party anthems — the fact that freedom o’ speech exists & makes people less responsible, which is certainly a take, & somehow e’en dumber, the fact that there are a bunch o’ things with 3-letter acronyms, like the dreaded MP3… Ooooo… I mean, yeah, OGGs are better — but still. &, bitch, ¿why are you complaining ’bout the BBC? You’re American: that’s none o’ our business.

E’en the lyrics ’bout pollution aren’t good: the song starts by complaining ’bout how mother Earth’s “pukin’ up lava” & how “her nerves tremble along fault lines ready to drop”. Um, yeah, that’s how volcanoes & tectonic shifts work — except humanity has nothing to do with that: earth has been doing that since long before humans have e’en existed. ¿You couldn’t say anything ’bout the earth becoming feverish from climate change or drowning in the ocean levels rising from the melted icecaps?

As for how this song sounds, it sounds shitty in the same way all lame protest or charity songs suck, with generic twinkling slow guitar notes, spoken-word verses, & chanting choruses.

Grade: F

5. Bartender Song ( Sittin’ At A Bar )

While “Bump” was the 1st song I heard on the radio, “Bartender Song” was the 1 that became their biggest hit & probably the song most people who do know this band know — so much so that ’twas added to the 2008 version o’ this album, having been originally released on a previous album that I’d ne’er heard ’bout till recently, “Southern Comfort” as just “Sittin’ At a Bar”. In fact, from what Wikipedia tells me, this song is the only reason they got signed to a big label @ all.

I don’t really get why this was the song that got them as big as they got, as it’s kind o’ just a generic, hokey country rock song with a stale ditty melody for both the verses & choruses ’bout some white trash drama ’bout a domestic dispute leading the drunken protagonist to steal his girlfriend’s car, crash it, & then wait in a bar for the police to arrest him. ¿Relatable?

The 1st version I heard on the radio & apparently the original version o’ the song from “Southern Comfort” had a different third verse with rapped lyrics & some generic hiphop beats along with the generic guitar notes, while the version on the 2008 version o’ “Graffiti the World” is the “Alt/Rock Mix” with the same rap verse half-sung, half-rapped & the hiphop beats removed — presumably a desperate attempt to scrape the scary black parts from the song so as not to scare the white hoes who didn’t listen to that “rap crap”, as was weirdly common ’mong singles with rap features released on rock stations. I remember a’least 1 local rock station — don’t remember which 1 — that excised a rap verse from a rapper as illustrious as Rakim from a Linkin Park song, which is particularly stupid, because Linkin Park is a rap rock band. I’m trying to imagine these same crackers removing Mike Shinoda’s rapped verses from fucking “Crawling”.

Grade: D

6. Last Tattoo

You’re standard dad rock “my ex is a bitch” song. This 1 does have a’least have a story ’bout the singer having to get 1 last tattoo to cover the name o’ his ex. Granted, Eminem had the same idea earlier in the middle o’ the song “Puke” from his magnum opus, Encore, & that song was funnier ’bout it, with Eminem joking that “my next girlfriend, now her name’s gotta be Kim ( sh-i-i-i-i-it )”. This song’s lyrics, meanwhile, are weirdly generic for such a high concept, with the singer just constantly talking ’bout how he feels numb, seeming to jumble together as many clichés like “cut me to the core” & “how could I be so blind”, when not engaging in some o’ the most contrived lyrical-spherical-miracle shit, like, “I know she’s with Brock Scott that jock with blond locks that blocks shots guess I’m just not that hot mailbox for cocks”. What “mailbox for cocks” means, I’m not entirely sure: I’m guessing it’s his poetic way o’ calling her a slut. & the few details the singer does share don’t make the protagonist sound sympathetic: after whining ’bout his ex not trusting his “rap career” — I mean, you’re a cracker: ¿is she wrong to have skepticism? — he talks ’bout stealing the money she left in their joint account. With this & “Graffiti the World”, it seems this band is good @ coming up with song concepts, but not @ actually fleshing them out on the lyrical level, which is honestly mo’ disappointing than the typical nu-metal bands who matched trite song ideas with generic lyrics.

Despite all that, this was 1 o’ the songs that made the cut on my mix CD, probably ’cause teenaged me was a sucker for any song with a catchy chorus, & this song does have a catchy — if albeit whiny-sounding — chorus. In fact, the singer also seems to put in much mo’ variety in his inflections when sing-rapping the verses, too, specially with the inebriated way he says, “give me the pain I’ll grit my teeth in”. Also, this song has distorted record scratch sounds after the choruses. They don’t fit in with the song whatso’er, but they’re there.

Fun fact: when I was a teenager I showed my mom this as a song I thought she’d like. She was not flattered.

Grade: C

7. 1980 ( feat. Steaknife )

¡Ey! ¡Steaknife’s back! ¡& this song’s ass!

This is the kind o’ lame-ass song your 45-year-ol’ parents would sing to each other after having too many sherries, with lame cracker rap verses that sound like a middle-aged evangelist preacher trying to seduce someone — with lines like “‘Danny just a crook’. I definitely done some things I shouldn’t be proud of, but we can do it by the book” — & a chorus with annoying electronic woo-woo-woo-woos in the background & hokey lines that rhyme “lady” & “1980”.

There are other skeevy parts ’bout this song, too. For instance, he talks ’bout how he & the woman have “known each other since 9th grade”. Maybe I’m being puritan, but hearing a grown man gooning o’er a woman when she was in high school is weird — not as weird as gooning o’er someone who is currently in high school, but still weird. I also hate the line “she ain’t no ho — she got class”, which reminds me too much ’bout that painful slam poem that the guy who wrote Ready Player One wrote. Honestly, I think bragging ’bout only gooning o’er pure, chaste women to be mo’ sexist than the rappers who drool o’er women’s asses & tits: a’least the latter aren’t pretending like there’s morality involved & a’least admit that hoes have some value.

Beyond that, this song’s lyrics are stilted, both in sing-rap performance & in how the verses abruptly jump subjects ’tween couplets, like how the weird line ’bout them knowing each other since 9th grade comes just after 1 line where he fantasizes ’bout them having a daughter named Maggie — random beyond a conspicuous rhyming word — just after telling the woman he’s after to stop being a tease.

This song was not included on my mix CD, since e’en my teenaged self could probably discern that this song is shit.

Also, apparently this song, which was not on the original 2005 release, was originally a song from a band o’ Steaknife’s called White Noize. That version is much better, as its rap lyrics & flow are much better, but has the same crappy chorus & bland beat & has the production o’ a tin can. Why anyone thought that song was strong ’nough to throw onto the rerelease, I have no idea.

Grade: F

8. Bottles & Cans

This song’s OK — OK ’nough to be included on my mix CD. I mean, I don’t think I’ll go back & listen to it again after this review, but I didn’t cringe inwardly as I listened to it. It’s your standard low song ’bout the singer being depressed ’bout being a broke drunk pothead, stuffed with mo’ clichés like “got a man down, mayday, mayday”, “telling myself it’ll be OK”, “caught between tomorrow & yesterday”, “feels like nothin’ e’er went my way”, etc. The only line that stands out to me is “I think we’ve gotten a little too open-minded”. Um, ¿why? ¿& what does that have to do with you being a depressed pothead? ¿Don’t potheads usually like being open-minded? ¿Whate’er happened to the “black tree silhouetted against an orange sky” from “Bump”? ¿Is this an attempt @ a poetic way to say you think you’ve smoked too much & all you’ve ended up with is feeling lethargic?

The chorus is mildly catchy, but also kind o’ cliché, with the repetitive dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun rhythm. Good ’nough for my teenaged self with just a small stack o’ mix CDs, but not for someone who has millions o’ songs @ his fingertips.

Grade: C

9. Lawn Chair High ( feat. Steaknife )

It’s very fitting that this song starts with the line, “It’s just another lawn-chair high”, ’cause this song is just ’nother song ’bout sitting round being stoned after the previous 1, except this 1 has lamer plucked guitar strings & a mo’ annoying high-pitched chorus. Meanwhile, the mountain o’ clichés in the previous song are replaced by lyrical-spherical-miracle rhymes ’bout bunch o’ random bullshit ’bout drugs, with 1 stray gainst gangster rap & their “guns, loot, & cars”. Yeah, ¿who wants to listen to Biggie Smalls tell a Godfather-like tragedy ’bout him murdering people to make a living, just an inch ’way from death, when I could hear 2 crackers rap ’bout lying on lawn chairs staring @ cars driving by & yelling @ a kid to pass him ’nother beer — that’s clearly much mo’ enthralling.

This song was not on the 2005 version, but an earlier version o’ this song was on the previous album, Cuz We Can, with its beautiful album cover o’ 2 dogs licking their crotches. The lyrical differences ’tween these versions are minute & don’t affect the quality much: it’s still stoned yapping. I’m pretty certain the music is better on the original, tho, which makes this rerelease 0 / 3 on rerelease song quality vs. their originals, which is counterintuitive. ¿Did some executives with bad taste insist on these changes? I mean, they insisted on including “1980” & this gem o’ a song, so clearly bad taste was the deciding factor. Meanwhile, a song that apparently featured motherfucking Cee-Lo Green & Big Gipp apparently wasn’t good ’nough to include on this rerelease, e’en tho that song, predictably, sounds much better.

Grade: D

10. This Town

¿What the fuck is this preprogrammed-ass riff & beat with synthetic hand claps & these clown-ass church choir choruses ’bout how “this town is my hooooome, deep in my soooooul / that’s why I’m @ hooooome, e’en when I’m on the roooooad”? Then we get jumpscared by rapping where Danny boy goes much deeper into the Southern twang than usual that just sounds like he’s trying to play a cartoon character. This whole song is cartoonish. I don’t need to tell you how cringe the verse lyrics are. There are, honest to God, lyrics that go, “skippin’ church the 1st time I heard ‘Planet Rock’ come out a boom box / that may be the day God saved my soul”. Clearly God didn’t save you when you listened to that record, as listening to Afrika Bambaataa should’ve made you develop mo’ eclectic taste in music to put out this stale Budd Lite o’ a song.

Grade: F

11. Red Water

I actually always liked this song, & I would now go far ’nough to say it’s, by a wide margin, the best song on this album, & I would bet money probably this band’s best song e’er. It’s certainly the most interesting: it tells a story ’bout the protagonist as a child envying the next door neighbor with a nice home & car & beautiful wife that the child protagonist precociously crushes on, only for the twist to be that 1 day while the protagonist was playing with the neighbors’ son after he & the wife came home from the mall, the wife stepped into the bathroom to find the husband “laying in an overflowing bathtub of red water” with his wrists presumably slit — “the 1st & the last time he ever relaxed”.

Unlike the other songs on this album that had good concepts but bad lyrical execution, I would go far ’nough to say that this song’s lyrics are actually well-written, with plenty o’ specific details, such as the protagonist waxing nostalgically ’bout eating his mother’s rice crispy treats & watching Tom & Jerry & describing what he particularly liked ’bout his neighbor’s house, such as its “big red door” & shrubs “trimmed so perfectly”. The lyrics all use elementary school verbiage with simple sentences, but that actually works to this song’s favor, as it is written from a 12-year-ol’s innocent perspective. Tied to this, the father’s suicide is ne’er called that: the kid just o’erhears that the father was lying in a bathtub of red water, likely not fully understanding the meaning till later.

Musically, the song is simple, but that fits this song well, too, so as not to distract from the story. & yet the vocals are Danny “Boone”’s best work on this album, with the verses, despite being spoken, having just the right changes in tone & speed, while the chorus is catchy & memorable with its elongated highs @ “& he was layiiiiiiing” & lows @ “he ever relaaaaaaaxed”.

Grade: S

12. Walk Away

Ugh, now we’re back to lame boomer shit. This song is a morality play ’bout the evils o’ people who cheat on their spouses, & how they should “just walk away” & not give into temptation. Honestly, the lyrics are better than most o’ the songs on this album: it’s a weird mix o’ the detail-oriented storytelling prowess showed on “Red Water” & the lame hokey “boomer talking ’bout sex” lines found on “1980”. For instance, the song starts with the description o’ a woman a guy finds in a club having “2 silicon weapons of mass distraction / nipples like screw-in cleats, damn near blastin””. Those are the kind o’ lame rhymes found throughout this song.

I’m particularly mixed ’bout the last verse, which is interesting in how perplexing it is: a husband who’s let off early from work finds hints that his wife is cheating & grabs a gun off the rack & bursts into his bedroom. That’s a cliché story that you’d expect to end with him blasting them both or maybe just blowing his own brains out in front o’ them to guilt-trip them. No, instead, he aims the gun @ them & forces his wife to call her parents & the cuckartist his wife & kids to tell them what they did ( I mean, they were going to find out during the inevitable divorces, anyway )… & then made them call the preacher who married them ’cause “you want God involved”… & then, e’en mo’ bafflingly, laid the gun on the bed & told them, “I’m leavin’ — feel free to shoot me in the back”: whether this was him being suicidal or having faith in God to protect him from these adulterers, I’ll ne’er know.

Unfortunately, this song doesn’t sound good: the beat is cliché, the chorus is as annoying as the chorus to a bad kid’s song, & the verses have that awkward whiteboy rapper flow.

Grade: D

13. We Live

God, please save me from these annoying sing-songy morality songs. This 1 sounds just like the last, but with “Graffiti the World”… No, this song’s lyrics are worse: that song a’least had the concept o’ pollution being like graffiti on the world; this song’s ’bout someone having an existential crisis ’cause he experienced a bit o’ road rage in traffic, while still yapping ’bout cliché boomer morality ’bout technology making us lose our souls or some shit.

Grade: F

Bonus 1: Wht Do U Wnt Frm Me

I wish I could say I’m done, but I promised I’d do the songs from the 2005 version, too, so let’s hurry thru these. This is, if you can believe it, an e’en more obnoxious version o’ “We Live”, with an absolutely retched hoedown melody thru the choruses while the singer yaps some mo’ ’bout boomer rants. Look, he follows the line “skies are full of poison air” with “family photo, comb your hair”. That’s ’bout the hypocrisy o’ Middle America or something. & the chorus is just boring & whiny. ¡Next!

Grade: F

Bonus 2: This I Know ( feat. Demun Jones )

This song is so bad it wraps round to being hilarious. The verses are mo’ moroseboy miracle-spherical yapping ’bout the ills o’ modern society, while the chorus is, as God as my witness, the Christian ditty, “Jesus loves me, yes I know / for the Bible tells me so”, but with the most pitiful o’ “oh oh”s in the background. It’s kind o’ amazing. You know, I didn’t realize we’d be jumpscared by a ✝-rock album, but here we are.

Also, we get this amazing bar:

feelin’ wack as a whip on the back of a slave on a ship

“Hmm… I can’t see anything wrong with me as a Southern white guy comparing my mundane problems to the infamously inhumane way my ancestors treated people”. I can’t wait for the lines, “I just want some franks / starvin’ so much you could call me Anne Frank”.

Grade: ✞❤️📖💬

Bonus 3: Running Out of Time

¡& thank God for that! Mo’ boomer rant yapping, but this time we get this ridiculous beat with heavy stock guitar riffs o’er squeaky electronic beeps while Danny “Boone” raps in a fast mumble like he’s running out o’ time from the 5 minutes he paid for in the sound booth to record his vocals.

Grade: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Conclusion

This is a weird album, with a few good or decent songs smothered in the same whack-ass morality ballads. It is only due to “Red Water” & “Bump” that this final score isn’t lower. & unlike most o’ the other albums I’ve eviscerated in this series, where I had a general idea o’ how bad they were or what made them bad, I memory-holed this album’s worst parts & mainly just remembered the better songs.

Final Grade: D