Background story: Having been a fan since my early teens when they first appeard on the Swedish TV-channel ZTV, with their "Riot In Everyone" video that rotated real good for quite some time. I believe the year was 2004 and I loved their sound and just wanted them to do an album. In 2005 things started to happen and their infamous debut "Rest In Sleaze" was released in September, I believe. I remember buying the album the day after it came out and I pretty much loved it. Then in early 2006 I was saddened to hear of Dave Lepard's death, as CRASHDÏET was a band I was looking forward to follow over the years. They split-up, got back together and the rest is history. I never liked that muscle Mary guy they replaced Dave with, he pretty much sucked big, mean horse balls. In 2009 they announced that Simon Cruz and I got excited again, CRASHDÏET was reborn for real now. The guy sounded a lot like Sebastian Bach but I always loved Skid Row, so I didn't have any problem with that. He's pretty much everything the muscle Mary wasn't for CRASHDÏET. 2010 saw the release of my personal favorite CRASHDÏET album, "Generation Wild". Now it's 2013, I've waited almost three years for a new album and now it's arrived, "The Savage Playground" ...
Before I start listening, my thoughts and expectations are something like "it's their forth album over an eight year spun, their second album with the same singer as the last album. Things will probably sound more mature and maybe somewhat different than their old stuff." Well, this album actually did live up to all those thoughts of mine, but after listening to it, I honestly don't really know to think about it. My first impression is confused. Very confused. The album starts off promising with a track called "Change The World", which also reminds me that some of the song titles on this album feel different in some way, for being CRASHDÏET songs I mean. They don't sound like the "typical" titles the band would go for, but they did it and however, the first song is a solid one, if maybe not the best. I like it a lot at least and it did its purpose: it made me excited.
The second track is the album's lead single, "Cocaine Cowboys". Not an original title and not very cool anymore neither, but the song rather is, though. As much as I usually hate it, I think I have to admit that this is as good as it gets on this album. The songs starts off with a cool cowboy, steel guitar kind of intro, which just makes me (yet again) connect them to Skid Row. If "Generation Wild" was CRASHDÏET's "Skid Row", then this album is starting to sound like their "Slave To The Grind". Now that is not a bad thing as it's my favorite Skid Row album, but everything's about to change, and that quickly. The next three tracks are rather a dull and bland collection of what can be classically called "fillers", but when "Circus" and "Sin City" kick in I'm enjoying the music again.
With my hope up somewhat again, the album unfortunately enters a new and longer stretch of bland tunes, and this time I'm losing it. When the chorus in "Damaged Kid" kicks in I react like "what the fuck?!". It sounds nu metal-ish and sounds like something any emo, Korn, or whatever band could've come up with. I'm not generally a close-minded music listener, I listen to all kinds of metal and music outside of metal, but I never, ever liked nu metal. This song just blows.
At this point I actually took a break from the album to listen to something good, but as I got back I saw the title of the next track - "Excited". How ironic, huh? This song does however make me satisfied, it's pretty okey. Up last we have "Garden Of Babylon" which is a pretty good one as well. Now this is probably the most interesting song on the whole album, as it sound very different from the typical CRASHDÏET we know. It also doens't sound pretty much like anything else on this album. It's not an awesome or very fun track, but it's solid and probably does the best closer this album can get. But then there's a bonus track called "Liquid Jesus" as well, and rightfully so, because it sounds like gospel glam and I'm not very fond of it.
Now this was the album and its songs. A kinda strange bunch if you ask me, but it is what it is. Beside some frustation during the tracks, I also noted that the album's production is somewhat raw and muddled, maybe? I don't think it really gives much detail to the different instruments and sounds. I feel like the riffs sometimes are hard to really hear fully out, and at times the vocals sound like rough mixes. Now I do fancy raw productions with little polished effects - if it's done right. This just feels poorly done, it's easily the worst sounding CRASHDÏET album so far.
Musically the guys are as good as ever. They do their thing like nothing's changed and I still really like Simon Cruz, he's a great singer and very charismatic for this band. There are not too many memorable riffs, drum fills or whatever to be found on this album, though. I don't know if the riffs ever where CRASHDÏET's strong side, I think it rather was the vocal melodies and harmonies that was "that special thing" about 'em.
At the end of this album I stand confused and ... disappointed, to be honest. I'm not a conservative person who wants to stay in the same way forever unchanged, but if for instance Simon Cruz made the band evolve this way, I'd rather see the band let him go and find yet another singer for the next album. But I simply just hope they did their little failure and will get back on track again, before it's too late. All I can say about my personal feelings about this album is that it feels like an unfocused mashmix and is experimenting into new sounds, which I approve of very much, but it does it in the wrong territories. While it has a lot of pretty shitty moments, it also has some mediocrity and some great ones. Maybe the album will grow on me in due time, I can only see about that.
Final rating: 4.5/10
