‘Club banger, no acoustic.‘
A wave of nostalgia hits you when you hear the mildly comical yet banger of a tune that is “Everywhere I Go” and deep cuts like “Bullet”. Fast forward a decade and you’ll find yourself with the same five people, still etching onwards, though now sounding more mature and incorporating more of an arena rock sound. There was always a well-equilibrated dynamic present across every album, balancing out the party anthem songs with the more emotional and provocative ones. Pair that with five (formerly six) different vocalists who brought their A-games and, more importantly, different flavors to it all, and you have a band that pioneered a genre. While Five brought the more raw sound while sacrificing the “fun” songs, it still retained the emotion and energy the band possessed. However, that changed with the two volumes of New Empire. Stripped of all that is goofy and sounding a tad too serious, it felt as if all that made the band enjoyable to listen to just ceased existing.
Enter Hotel Kalifornia, the quintet’s eighth full length. After the previous releases, I did not have any positive expectations going into it, besides more average radio rock choruses chocking the album. However, the child in me who grew up on the band is happy to announce that that is not the case, for the most part. The spark that made Hollywood Undead make a jump from Myspace to everyone’s iPods back in late 2000s has been rejuvenated here, if only momentarily. Despite being shorter than the norm at just under three quarters of an hour, the sheer number of songs allows for an assortment of styles that gives all five members of the band the opportunity to shine.
Rap verses have always been the strong suit for Hollywood Undead, and Hotel Kalifornia delivers some of the best songs they have released in that regard. “Ruin My Life” is a highlight of the band’s discography. Obviously more mature than their more primitive stuff, as is expected with the passage of time, it is still an absolute blast and a throwback tune to the good old days. “Wild In These Streets” sits among their best rap work yet, akin to older classics like “Black Cadillac” in tone. Drew Fulk’s influence in the mix is clearly felt with the punchiness of the beats, giving them a more pop edge. A lot of the more better songs (See “Happy When I Die” and “Alright”) can be traced back to having their roots in American Tragedy and Swan Songs but with a more evolved sound.
Much to my dismay, not everything is sunshine and unicorns. There’s a sizeable amount of uninspired choruses that are repeated an excessive amount of times. These steal valuable track time from the verses that have always been the star of the show. While the lyrical themes manage to portray what the band wanted to say about their time years ago, most of the choruses fall off and fail to hook you in. For each amazing verse, there are two average at best, and often the same, choruses. On the bright side, the overall length of the album is short enough to make those bearable. That is not to say that every chorus is mediocre; “Hourglass” is a great counterpart to some of the angsty rock tunes from Five.
Hotel Kalifornia is a step in the right direction musically. While there is still a lot of ground to cover and corners to cut in terms of the rock-oriented chorus side of things, the spirit of older songs is still there, fleeting. Change is evident as people get older and it would not be fair to expect the edginess of the days of old, but the spirit that put Hollywood Undead on the radar in the first place needs to be there. And for this one time, it is there, but just barely. ‘Will I Be Alright?‘ asks Charlie Scene on the closer. If they keep going down this path, they sure will be alright.
7/10
Hotel Kalifornia is out next Friday, August 12th, and you can preorder it here.