Drowning Pool
SINNER
(WIND-UP)

" Let the bodies hit the floor! " is the kind of rage-rock refrain that’s been dying to be written since before the first Limp Bizkit album came out — figures it would take a crew as faceless as Dallas mersh-metal scumbags Drowning Pool to pull it off. " Bodies " is the first single from their debut, and it’s a sure-fire in-concert rabble rouser with enough steaming riffs to back up its lyrical sentiment. Singer Dave Williams taps into the screaming dementia of Disturbed vocalist David Draiman throughout much of the disc, but his voice isn’t nearly as arresting when he goes melodic. The band have bigger problems: their grooves don’t carry much weight, and guitarist C.J. Pierce seems to have caught that nasty wah-wah virus from Godsmack. Drowning Pool occasionally align themselves with metal’s new pop wing (Saliva, Alien Ant Farm), but their hooks are too glum to rise above the fray. And though Williams does come up with a few memorable outbursts to go along with " Bodies, " like the charging numbskull chorus of " Pity " ( " Pity me/Pity me/Don’t you pity me? " ), most of Sinner is as uninspired as it is unoriginal.

(Drowning Pool perform as part of OzzFest this Tuesday and Wednesday, August 7 and 8, at the Tweeter Center. Call 617-228-6000.)

Issue Date: August 2 - 9, 2001