Mushroomhead is a band from whom I’ve heard 2 songs, only 1 o’ which I think I remember hearing on the radio back in the day. Coincidentally, that 1 single, “Simple Survival” — whose name is similar ’nough to this album title that I kept mistaking this album as also being called “Simple Survival” — is the only 1 to reach the US main rock charts, if Wikipedia is to be trusted. I actually think I have mo’ nostalgia for having rediscovered it round 2012 when looking for autumnal music to listen to while doing college work. That makes this an interesting band for me: in the past I’ve mainly looked @ bands or albums that either I have known much ’bout or am mostly going in blind; here I have a li’l experience, but not a whole album’s worth.
1. 12 Hundred
This song is… pretty much what you’d expect from a nu-metal band named Mushroomhead who dress in spooky costumes. We have that back & forth o’ shouting — mainly from Jeffery Nothing — & sinister whispering — mainly from Waylon Reavis — common in nu-metal; we have the combination o’ downtuned guitars & noisy electronics you’d expect from a blend o’ nu-metal & industrial; we have vague angsty lyrics that make heavy use o’ religious themes:
the mother of nothing
the mother of sin
the father of decadence within us
a brother of suffering inside
¿What does any o’ this mean? I’m not going to pretend to know or care.
If I had to single out 1 part o’ this song, it’s the wicked disk-scratching solo @ round 1:35. Nu-metal disk-scratching solos ne’er get the love they deserve.
Grade: B
Music Video
I love this fucked up video editing: the sudden jump cuts, the speed-up / slow downs, the random blurring. ¡Yes, give me those seizures! & the band members don’t disappoint in the cheese department: we have the 1st guy with a cross painted across his face & the ungodly combination o’ braids & a widow’s peak; a pale guy chained down to a table & covered in blood; — tho he certainly doesn’t seem like he’s letting that get him down — a mummy; someone in a pig mask; & a guy wearing what I think is a knight mask — shout out to him for his wicked disk-scratching @ 1:47. I also love the moves the pale guy makes @ 2:04: standing stiffly, but twitching his neck abruptly e’ery so oft. I could ask for nothing better from this music video.
Grade: S
2. Simple Survival
Definitely a stronger song than “12 Hundred” for me, with its sparse opening with the faded vocals & limited instruments bursting out into the main song with Nothing’s interesting low, almost operatic voice, broken off here in there with Reavis’s whispered shouts. I especially like the 2nd verse where Nothing’s voice goes particularly deep & the music goes a bit sparser with emphasis on the piano notes.
Lyrically, howe’er, it’s not quite as good as “12 Hundred”. There are a couple interesting lines ’bout “push[ ing ] the colors from the makeup”, but much mo’ vague, generic lyrics ’bout the “shadow within me” & hate & killing.
Grade: A
Music Video
The music video is close in quality to “12 Hundred”’s, but a li’l weaker. We still have the great Halloween costumes & weird twitching motions — & I’m glad that guy kept the cross painted on his face & the widow’s peak braids. The torture chamber from “12 Hundred” is replaced with a barren white industrial room, interspersed with strange footage o’ a couple running from the band with weird color correction. It’s cool, but not as cool as all the weird shit “12 Hundred”’s music video had.
Grade: A
3. Damage Done
This song’s a lot mo’ repetitive & basic, with pretty basic singing — both in terms o’ Nothing’s straight shouting & Reavis’s whispered spoken lines — & mostly basic beat, with the 1 exception being the pretty sweet instrumental placed weirdly right in the middle o’ the song. This song’s structure is, oddly, the least basic & repetitive part o’ the song.
The lyrics are also pretty repetitive & basic, with a lot o’ talk o’ getting “fucked up” & getting high & breaking shit & hate & damage, & you know. The Genius annotation just straight up insults this song’s lyrics, saying, “Means literally nothing, just like the rest of this bands lyrics. Pure word-salad gibberish, but super deep and cool right?”, which I think is a li’l unfair & inaccurate: word-salad gibberish would be mo’ interesting. If anything, this lyrics’s straightforward nihilistic angst leaves nothing to the imagination. I fail to see how “gonna tear this god damn world apart” is “word-salad”: it means exactly what it says.
Grade: C
4. Save Us
In contrast to “Damage Done”’s focus on just being a pure banger, this song is mostly a slow song, especially @ the beginning. It also has a lot mo’ variety & seems to have a lot mo’ effort put into the different ways the 2 singers sing & the shifts in sound. Unfortunately, other than maybe the 2nd verse, where the instruments drop to a jazzy piano tune, & the extra chorus where they sing ’bout angels screaming, which has the best vocal work o’ heard from them so far. Granted, that’s mo’ than the previous song’s 1 interesting instrumental & this song is ’bout the same length as that song, despite being much slower.
1 thing I will say in praise o’ this album as a whole, which stands out most in this song, is that unlike most nu-metal, it actually has pretty good mixing & production.
Lyrically, it’s maybe a bit better than “Damage Done”, but still a drop from the 1st 2 tracks. Wishing for someone to save “me” or “us” is a very cliché topic in nu-metal, as are sentiments o’ the “whole world calling” or rants o’ “¿does anyone care?” or talk o’ indifference to one’s “fellow man” or angels screaming. ¿Why would angels be screaming, anyway? ¿are they s’posed to be innocent people being harmed by this mean ol’ world? Points lost for blindly following the trite — & Biblically inaccurate — metaphor o’ angels as precious babies. Have the angels being the eldritch monsters they actually are in the Bible doing God’s dirty work on the earth & then we’d be doing something interesting.
Grade: B
5. Tattoo
This song is the worst flaws o’ “Damage Done” multiplied, without the good parts. This song is just straight shouting with a blaring repetitive riff & beat to such an extent that it actually becomes annoying to listen to.
Lyrically, too, this song is repetitive & cliché: lots o’ talk o’ being trapped in a cage despite all my rage & prayers not being answered & hatred & being weak. There are 2 lines that are kinda interesting involving “sunshine moonlight”, which is a weird paradox, & “stars soar in a violent sky” is the most poetic line I’ve read so far from Mushroomhead; howe’er, they don’t connect to this song whatsoe’er & hearing it shouted blandly like e’erything else saps the force from them.
Grade: D
6. Erase the Doubt
I get some much needed silliness from this song, which starts with Nothing singing in his weird deep operatic voice while bizarre electric music in the background that sounds like screeching flies plays — which is fitting when paired with lines ’bout tearing off wings. Later on Reavis sings in this weird filtered robotic voice during the chorus. Honestly, none o’ it sounds particularly good, — ’cept for some o’ the interesting drum beats; too bad they’re smothered under all the weird sounds going on — but it is mo’ interesting than most o’ the other songs so far.
Grade: 🪰
7. Burn
Uh… this song exists, I guess. Sigh, you know, I was excited by the 1st 2 songs, as they had that combination o’ cheesy & fun that could make this a good replacement for doing yet ’nother Disturbed album for Halloween; — I mean, I’ve squeezed that well so dry that I’m gonna have to review their B-sides album if I review them again — but we’ve fallen into 1 o’ those slumps where the songs aren’t good ’nough to praise, bad ’nough to really dunk on, or have anything notable to say. This song isn’t e’en as repetitive as “Damage Done” or “Tattoo” to e’en mention that.
Grade: 🤷
Music Video
I would say I’m surprised a song as standard as this has a music video; but as I established in the 1st entry on Papa Roach, bands — or their label or management — oft tend to choose their most formulaic songs for the radio to avoid scaring the hoes.
I’m not sure if this music video is meant to look like a stop-motion Sega CD game; but that weird choppy, low-res effect is the most interesting thing this music video has going for it. Otherwise, it’s just the band members in their costumes wigging out while the camera also wigs out in front o’ them interspersed with chorus lyrics in the tackiest Microsoft Movie Maker font they could find. Quite a disappointment for the heights the 1st 2 music videos reached.
Grade: C
8. Just Pretending
O, ¿this song is on this album, too? This is the other song with which I’m familiar, which means that we’re back to much better songs, thankfully. While not as good as “Simple Survival”, I always liked this song’s thick piano notes mixed with the driving riffs; the way the vocals evolve thru the verses from growling, to whispering, to screaming; & especially the chorus with the strained bass in the back & the way the vocals elongate @ the last word.
Tho I ne’er paid attention to it before, this song’s lyrics are also much better than… pretty much any other song on this album so far. Tho the theme o’ considering one’s own mortality isn’t exactly unique… hardly any song topic is & it’s still mo’ interesting than just talking ’bout hate & nihilism & wanting to break stuff. Hardly any o’ the lines are brilliant, but this song manages to make quick simple rhymes like, “just pretending that we’re ending” & “digging deep inside yourself / never knew your own wealth”, that are actually saying something relevant to the song & aren’t just stringing together words just to rhyme. Keep in mind, we’re working on the scale o’ Trapt’s, “your master plan / don’t understand / i’d rather live in my own wasteland”. There are e’en some somewhat clever turns o’ phrase, like, “living life in your yesterday”, as a way to describe someone spending more o’ their precious time ruminating o’er what’s past & gone than what one has in front o’ them now.
That being said, this song is still pretty vague & aimless: on 1 hand, it constantly repeats the idea o’ “we’re all gonna die soon” without building it to anything; on the other, “just pretending that we’re ending” almost contradicts the main theme, as if in reality we’re not ending & we’re immortal. ¿Shouldn’t it be “just pretending, we’re not ending”? & we do still get some cringy generic nihilist lines, like, “all the truth from the lies / in this man-made disease”. ¿What is “this man-made disease”? ¿Death? Man didn’t make death. ¿Delusions o’ grandeur, that man is too important to die? See, this is why building up on ideas & not just throwing out vague lines works better — certainly better than just going on to talk ’bout killing & “filling” repeatedly.
But, again, we’re on the nu-metal scale, not the Leonard Cohen scale, so I give it a pass.
Grade: A
9. The Need
This song has a major chasm ’tween the quality in instrumentals & quality in vocals: it opens great, with those dour, slow deep riffs matched with the melancholic piano notes & Nothing’s deep voice chanting, ”anything you need…”; but while the music stays strong, the singing just kinda goes on without any interesting or e’en coherent rhythm or melody. The lines, “now i walk alone / i find a way”, are hilariously slow, as is, “kindly nail yourself”, while the rest isn’t. Like, the singer just randomly slows down @ certain lines while the music plays @ the same tempo. Meanwhile, when the music changes & we get this sweet drumming in the middle, they repeat this… ¿verse? they sing it the same way, with the weird slow-downs again.
The only place where I feel the singing matches the music is @ the end where the slow piano notes is matched with 1 o’ the singers menacingly whispering the last 2 lines. As it turns out, these last 2 lines are also the only interesting lyrics: “close your eyes / if you want to be blind”.
If any song from Mushroomhead deserves to be called “word salad”, it’s this. We start with the idea that the protagonist can’t be “anything you need”. OK. Good… He’s walking alone, finding his way. That’s cliché, but I guess it fits in with him not being compatible with this other person: he can’t meet their needs, so he must walk alone. Then his… ¿prayers are unanswered? I thought you couldn’t be what this other person needs; ¿now you are the 1 with the needs from them? & then the verse ends with the mystifying request that this other person, “kindly nail yourself / upon your thoughts”, which I can only interpret as the most pretentious way to say, “think ’bout it, please”, e’er. Meanwhile, the 2nd verse seems to be mo’ ’bout the protagonist struggling with religion. ¿Can you not be “anything you need” to God? ¿Does an omnipotent deity “need” anything? Is “kindly nail yourself upon your thoughts” referencing Jesus’s crucifixion?
I’m not nearly stoned ’nough for this shit — ¡not yet, a’least!
Grade: 😌💨🌿
10. Cut Me
cut me & i bleed same as you do
All right. We’re evoking Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice famously criticizing antisemitism by emphasizing Jews’ shared humanity with gentiles in that they all bleed when cut — or “pricked”, as Shakespeare says mo’ poetically. Kinda melodramatic. ¿Are we going to mangle a line from MLK Jr. to talk ’bout our suburban teenage angst next?
That aside, we get mo’ singing that lacks any rhythmic or melodic structure, ’cept this time the music doesn’t really, either. Special attention should be given to what Genius calls the “refrain”, which is only 2 lines, both o’ which mostly follows this slow, plodding rhythm, only for Reavis to suddenly speed up the latter half o’ the 2nd line for no reason. Meanwhile, as the music plays we just add random electric effects. I do howe’er love how cheesily hard Reavis screeches, “far too hard to trust the things we all do”, randomly @ the end o’ the 2nd verse. The fact that ’hind all this is this basic dour piano melody just adds to the bathos.
This song’s lyrics are also angsty word salad. My favorite line is, “¿can i survive myself inside you?”. I’m sure that was s’posed to mean something deep ’bout… deepness or something; but it just makes me imagine someone wondering if they can survive shrinking themselves & going inside someone else’s body, like in those ol’ sci-fi stories.
Grade: 🔪
11. The Fallen
This song sounds mo’ like late 2000s hard rock — I’m thinking like Black Stone Cherry, specially with that deep but squeaky guitar sound1 — than Mushroomhead’s normal spooky nu-metal so far. E’en the opening faded vocals sound less spectral & mo’ like the kind o’ gimmick a band like Godsmack would use. According to Genius, who ne’er lies, ne’er cries, swallows their pride, & makes this the day that nobody dies, amen, I am alive, this song was originally for a different band Jeffery Nothing was in, so that might explain why it sounds like it belongs to a different genre. In short, this song kinda sounds like ass — like butt rock, to be specific.
This song might have the most bizarre lyrics so far. Thruout there is this repeated refrain o’, “we are not amused”, which is a phrase attributed to the UK’s Queen Victoria. ¿Does Queen Victoria have anything to do with this song? ¿Is this song ’bout monarchy? ¿Is the “world in ruin” that you want me to come walk with you thru the ruin o’ monarchy?
We get plenty o’ lyrical spherical greatness in this song, with such hits as, “indivisible, invisible” & “fools & criminals far from minimal”. Now this is that Trapt style “rhyming without saying shit” that I expect from nu-metal. Here, let me try:
the dogs, they bark
ain’t no walk in the park
i seethe, i breed
contempt for those who lead
us to bleed & feed
on our needs
I also question the mathematical accuracy o’, “add 1 & 1 to lose”. I’m pretty sure that = 2. Maybe they’re just calling people who do math losers.
As you can imagine, I have no clue what this song is s’posed to be ’bout, & I’m skeptical that the composers do, either.
I don’t know what you’re talking ’bout, guys: I’m very amused by this song.
Grade: lol
12. Embrace the Ending
Calling your final track, “Embrace the Ending”, is just begging for critics to dunk on you. C’mon.
¿How would you feel if Mushroomhead ended this album with corny melodramatic guitar plucking while the singers rant ’bout random nonsense for nearly 5 minutes?
The lyrics are so inspired that there are only a couple times where they just repeat the same line o’er & o’er — including just saying, “the ending”, ironically @ the beginning, several times. & I hope you’re ready for some vague, mystical lyrics like, “we fool ourselves / when we share the wealth”. ¿Is this an Ayn Randian criticism o’ socialist economics or giving to charity? ¿Is “the wealth” an ironic metaphor for something like pain? ¿Or was “wealth” just the 1st word they thought o’ that rhymes with “ourselves”?
We, ’course, get some wicked miracle spherical lines, too:
to disagree with me
admit defeat
we bleed in disbelief
I just hate it when I disbelieve so much it magically produces gashes on my arms.
Grade: add lol & lol to end
Conclusion
Reviewing this album was a rollercoaster o’ emotions, from genuinely liking it to genuinely not liking it to ironically liking it for how goofy it became. I’ve encountered all 3 thuout these reviews, but I don’t think all 3 in 1 review. I’m kinda annoyed that I decided to review this album for Halloween ’cause the 1st 2 songs were so spooky & then the rest o’ the album devolved into… whate’er the rest o’ the album was. O well.
Final Grade: 💀
- While looking up Black Stone Cherry to check to ensure I’m not imagining things — ’cause you know I’m bumping Black Stone Cherry all the time — I realized they had a song called “Blame it on the Boom Boom” & made me realize I need to do an entry on 1 o’ their albums. I, too, am sick o’ that miniboss showing up e’erywhere in Super Mario Bros. 3 & Super Mario 3D Land. ↩︎
