Yes, this is a real album. It is, in fact, their 1st e’er album, an EP released 6 whole years before their big LP debut, Infest. Whereas that album was clearly inspired by Rage Against the Machine, this album sounds like it’s aping, o’ all bands, Primus, with that twangy slap bass. As a young fan who for some reason loved Papa Roach so much that I sought out any record I could, I was baffled when I listened to this & heard not the angsty, dark metal to which I was accustomed, but a band plucking a guitar & babbling ’bout aborting babies. Having widened my rock palate & with my greater understanding o’ the early 90s funk metal scene with surreal bands like Mr. Bugle, Red Hot Chili Peppers, & the aforementioned Primus, — as well as early Incubus, which as I mentioned in an earlier review, also surprised me by how different it was from their later softer sound — such surprise has evaporated.

But while my younger self was confused, my present self is pleased, for such an absurd album makes a perfect candidate for Nostalgic Novelty Noughties 90s Nu-Metal.

1. Coffee Thoughts

For some reason this is misspelled “Cofee Thoughts” on YouTube Music; but it’s spelled correctly on the album cover & e’erywhere else I looked, so I’m not blaming this on Papa Roach themselves for making this mistake, but their label — & the capitalist system o’ production — for presumably hiring an intern paid with “exposure“, who thus is not paid nearly well ’nough to care ’bout properly spelling the name o’ an ol’ obscure Papa Roach song that nobody else but me is listening to when dumping it onto YouTube for a few extra ad $s.

Anyway, this album, fittingly, starts with a song ’bout coffee, which is always the best part o’ waking up. I like how this song starts with ominous clanking riffs that almost sound like an alarm going off, only for the band to give up on that & start plucking their guitars wildly. This album is fascinating in that it demonstrates a band so young they haven’t learned the bare basics o’ song composition, with these “songs” sounding less like actual songs with melodies, rhythm, or themes, & mo’ just screwing round with instruments & babbling silly nonsense o’er it. I compared this to Primus, but actually paying closer attention makes me better appreciate how despite how crazy & seemingly random Primus are, they still actually composed songs with structure & melodies.

& yet I kinda prefer this song’s lyricism to Papa Roach’s usual fare. If anything, it’s mo’ baffling that a band that early on could start a song with lines like, “my coffee stain is turned down / i sit & watch it burn no longer”, which is a perfect balance o’ being surreal ’nough to not be clear what it means, but give ’nough information & imagery to inspire some kind o’ metaphor, only to later on write bland angst like, “I AM ON A BINGE / I WISH THINGS WOULD CHANGE / WISH THEY’D REARRANGE / I’M ON A BIIIINGE”. I mean, ¿where else can you hear someone describe the Folgers founder as “a roasting soldier” or have a chorus that starts with, “¡Here comes the coffee man!”.

My 1 complaint is that according to the lyrics on Genius.com, the end o’ the chorus says “It’ll clean out your ears”, when I always ( faintly, thru the production that is just as seeping with mud as the coffee they describe ) heard “it’ll clean out your innards”, which I think is a better line. In fact, I still think I’m the 1 who’s right: 1, I still hear “innards”; 2, “clean out your ears” makes no sense: coffee accelerates digestion; it doesn’t go anywhere near your ears, unless you’re drinking it wrong. @ the risk o’ creating a violent schism, I must proclaim Genius.com to be wrong.

Honestly, despite this song’s obvious lack o’ technical quality, it’s still a fun song with fun lyrics & fun funky slap bass.

Grade: ☕

2. Mama’s Dress

This song is ’bout a young man struggling gainst their deepest transvestite desires, with the chorus, where Coby Dick — Mr. Dick, if you’re nasty, you’ll recall — frantically shouts, “¡I WOULDN’T WEAR! ¿WHO WOULDN’T WEAR? ¡SHE DIDN’T WEAR… MAMA’S DRESS!”, which, like Hemingway, says so much in so li’l: note how ’mong the 1st 2 sentences the protagonist goes back & forth from proclaiming that he would ne’er wear a mother’s dress to asking why one wouldn’t want to wear a mother’s dress: ¿why in our modern age do men still enslave themselves to the gendered rituals o’ segregated clothing decades after women had already freed themselves to wear trousers & T-shirts? & as a proud transvestite myself, I resonate with this song — ’cept I wear cute plaid skirts, not lame-ass mothers gowns from the 50s, which is maybe the real reason the protagonist wouldn’t wear it.

But then in the 3rd sentence we stealthily see the male protagonist become a “she”, hinting that what seems to be a mere interest in women’s apparel may be a full-fledged questioning o’ the protagonist’s gender. Thank you all for listening to my LGBTQ+ feminist analysis o’ Papa Roach.

Also, “tampax cheese-whiz” is a crazy phrase I’d ne’er expect in a Papa Roach song.

Grade: 🏳️‍⚧️

3. Lenny’s

This is a fun song with a catchy chorus, but it’s surprisingly e’en less coherent than the previous songs — tho I do like how this song continues from the last song, with the protagonist shouting for “the gown”, which is presumably the mama’s dress. Outside o’ that, this song seems to bounce ’tween 2 different perspectives thruout: the protagonist — who apparently goes by the name “wants the combo”, if the line “me llamo wants the combo” is any indication — complaining ’bout the prices & threatening to go to this mysterious place only known as Lenny’s — ¿or is is Denny’s? — &… no, wait, I just realized it’s the person ordering telling the person they’re ordering from, “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave”, followed closely after with, “& yes I’d like to order”, e’en tho that’s backward. Ne’er mind: it’s just 1 person, just 1 crazy ’nough to reverse roles with the staff for an instant.

As any work o’ sublime art, the composer ne’er tells us what this “Lenny’s” place is or take place there; contrariwise, the place the protagonist is actually in is ne’er named. The listener is left to imagine it for themselves, for it is not a literal place, but a representation o’ heaven, o’ paradise, an escape from the burden o’ a reality where we are stuck in restaurants with o’erpriced food. Now that fast food places like McDonald’s are steeply raising their prices, this song is only mo’ relevant.

But while Lenny’s may be a protest gainst this unjust reality, the protagonist ne’er goes there, only dreaming o’ it. @ the end o’ the chorus, a voice asks, “¿why do trees have green leaves?”, 1 o’ the few to question the seemingly iron laws o’ reality. But that voice apparently realized how dangerous this kind o’ rebellion is, for immediately after, they say, “i don’t know why, but i’ll eat my peas, yeah”, sitting back down & acquiescing to the reality outside o’ this mystical Lenny’s they feel powerless to fight.

Grade: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

4. Lulu Espidachi

I love how Jacoby Shaddix’s — or “Jacoby Shaddox”, as it is weirdly misspelled on the album cover — singing is so incoherent that e’en Genius.com gave up trying to transcribe it @ a few parts, just leaving question marks — leaving us “findin’ nothin’ but questions & devils”, as Coby had proclaimed in “Last Resort”. Looking up “Espidachi” only shows results revolving round this obscure song, so I’m assuming it’s a surname Papa Roach made up. I believe this song is ’bout an ol’ woman knocking on the protagonist’s door & pestering him asking if he’d like to buy some bananas, which irritates the protagonist & leads him to wonder if “it’s time to buy that sign” — presumably a “no solicitors” sign, a wry social commentary on how door-to-door salesmen only seem to succeed @ encouraging the sales of other wares from somewhere else to deal with them.

But if we mistake this song as a simple relatable story ’bout the travails o’ the e’eryman dealing with annoying solicitors, we would miss a vital piece o’ the puzzle o’ this album’s arc: for subtly slipped into the middle o’ this song is the reveal that the protagonist’s anxiety comes not from having to deal with a salesperson, but being reminded o’ her gender dysphoria by having these phallic bananas shoved into her face, leading her to ask the seemingly out-o’-nowhere question, “¿what do i look like? ¿a freakin’ hermaphrodite?”. Hidden within this mask o’ a silly tale ’bout annoying solicitors is the real story o’ a trans woman’s gender dysphoria leading to social alienation.

Grade: 🪧

5. Cheez-Z-Fux

& yet our protagonist forces herself into the public & tries to drown out her anxieties with red hot capitalist consumption by going to the club. Here we see that our lesbian trans woman’s gender dysphoria has grown to an outright disgust with all things male, with her view o’ the feminine “butterfly colors” seemingly ruined when she next sees what is mo’ an absurd caricature o’ a man:

he’s got gold chains & hair chest
he’s making me sick in his saturday night best

Instead, she turns her attention to a woman she calls “sweetcakes”, on whom she tries corny, cliché pickup lines, like asking her her sign & telling her she was “made in heaven”. Near the end, as if parallel to the beginning description o’ the man who made her sick, we see a much different description o’ this woman:

then he saw the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen:
that wide-brimmed hat, that fake pink fur coat,
& those fishnet stockings

& then @ the end the protagonist’s feeling o’ being alone are evaporated when it is revealed to her that this woman is a pimp just like her, making her realize that her newfound womanhood would not interfere with her career.

Grade:

6. I Love Babies

This is the song I mainly remember: an edgy song whose chorus goes, “a-bort-a a-bort-a a-bort-a a-bort-a, NO MORE BABIES”, the “abort” part sung with all the eloquence o’ a braying goat. I won’t e’en pretend to know what the rest o’ this song is ’bout, specially the line, “call me a little jew, me & you, a cup or 2”. Since the protagonist is talking ’bout masturbating, my best guess is it’s a riff on circumcision. What I do know is that the line, “gotta like your dick, gotta like your dick, gotta like your dick”, is the protagonist struggling with her gender mo’.

Wait, no… No, this song isn’t an edgy song ’bout aborting all babies: it’s just ’bout masturbation, with the “spilled seed”, to speak Biblically, being like aborted babies. Not gonna lie: the edgy song ’bout abortion just being a lame metaphor for jerking off is very disappointing, like discovering that someone you once looked up to wasn’t as great as you thought they were. I guess that’s not unlike my general experience o’ growing out o’ Papa Roach & sharpening my palate on mo’ artistic, cerebral music outside the mainstream, like Swans or Breaking Benjamin.

Grade: 😔

7. Dendrilopis

I think this is s’posed to be a parody o’ early Beastie Boys, with 3 boy voices rap-shouting o’er each other o’er cheap beats — very different from the rest o’ this album. I have no idea why this is here — but then I could say that ’bout e’erything on this album. Searching “dendrilopis” just gives results for this song, so it’s ’nother word Papa Roach made up. I’m guessing it’s a mishmash o’ dendrite, which take in senses to nerves; tendril, a plant appendage; & metropolis. So it’s ’bout aroused wood cock, just like the lyrics, talking ’bout woodpeckers. Truly Mr. Coby Dick has lived up to his rap name on this album. Perhaps by this point our protagonist has learned to love her womanhood & having a penis — a “gock”, as the hip kids now say. Truly this album was ahead o’ its time — well, ’cept for the weak parody to 80s Beastie Boys: that’s aged ’bout as well as that time 1 o’ the Ramones tried to rap.

Grade: 🪵

Conclusion

This is 1 o’ those albums where taking a closer examination was a bad idea. Yes, I am still bummed out ’bout “I Love Babies”. Some music was meant to just be a vibe, as the hip kids now say, & not be delved into too deeply for risk o’ learning o’ things that may sour the experience; & the band who wrote such lyrics as, “¿what’s the deal, girl? / tearing up each other’s world / we should be in harmony, boy & girl”, is a prime example. O well: a’least we got to experience a beautiful tale ’bout a trans woman’s journey thru gender dyphoria that I didn’t completely make up in a desperate attempt to make sense o’ nonsense gibberish lyrics. Also, “Coffee Thoughts” & “Lenny’s” are legit bops.

Final Grade: 🥔🎄