Puddle of Mudd's story is every struggling musician's dream come true: Armed with a fake backstage pass, frontman
Wes Scantlin snuck the band's demo to a
Limp Bizkit security guy at a show in their native Kansas City, and less than one year later finds his group's debut album the first release on
Fred Durst's new label. Thankfully,
Come Clean sounds nothing like
Limp Bizkit, but
Puddle of Mudd's aggro-rock sound is indistinguishable from every other
Alice in Chains and
Tool influenced band to come along in the past few years. The opening, "Control," milks the loud/quiet formula that's been done to death since
Nirvana's demise, but adds some interesting stop-time changes during the break, while the acoustic balladry of "Drift and Die" sounds so familiar,
Layne Staley should get a portion of the songwriting royalties. In the end, this isn't a terrible debut album, but it doesn't really bring any original ideas to the nu-rock table. And frankly, in today's already glutted metal market, that's simply not good enough. [
Come Clean was also released in a "clean" edition, containing no profanities or vulgarities.] ~ Bret Love