Bush
Golden State

THE REVIEW

So, when a band is named after the President of the United States, it doesn't deserve the original purchase; if the music still sounds like it did in 1994, even less so.
That being said, not everything contained in this disc is rubbish.

Rewind: year 1993.
Gavin Rossdale is a clever person.
He realizes that back home (England), something is about to explode that will later be called brit-pop. He doesn't like that kind of music; he likes Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Sonic Youth... anything but Blur. No one agrees to sign him to a decent contract if he insists on playing "that stuff."
If Mohammed won't come to the mountain...
Plane ticket to the U.S.A., catchy name, annoying, 100% grunge sounds, Kurt dies, a craze erupts... lucky break, the Bush become, between '94 and '97, one of the most-played bands by North American rock radio stations (I was a witness).

Sixteen Stone (debut) is a good rock album that mixes the warm, raspy voice of the frontman with hard and unpolished sounds: Glycerine is a great single that paves the way for sales previously unimaginable for the band.
Gavin Rossdale gets even cleverer: he decides to snatch up a beautiful girl (a bit kitsch, but what do you want if you're a celebrity, everything becomes gold, even things that perhaps aren't) named Gwen Stefani, who, coincidentally, is also on top of the wave with her No Doubt and always the talk of the town as a leading celebrity.
Money, success, millions of records sold.
Change something?? Gavin Rossdale isn't stupid: so no.

FF: year 2002.
Nothing has changed, after some disappointing market brackets, like the release of Razorblade Suitcase (though Swallowed was a great single) the Bush return with Golden State.
The album is raw rock, grunge in some parts, perhaps slightly better crafted in some rhythmic sounds, especially in the ballads (Inflatable) or in some very small background electronic flashes to cover sound defects that hark back to a rock that's out of fashion, that no one plays anymore.
Still, it's an album with its merits: the single, "The People That We Love," is sharper and edgier, less massive than previous ones; there are more ballads or less angry songs than usual, the frontman's voice is still the same (you may like it or not, but it's noteworthy).

If you've listened to something by Bush before and you liked it, then you'll like this work too, because this is a band that remains faithful to its sounds.
The lyrics still talk about fleeing hunted by who knows whom, about chaotic cities, about turning into new, angrier people (to do what??); the drums are played a bit in Foo Fighters style (very marked and aggressive but especially, in some parts, very cymbal-driven).

In short... a good album to make some noise without thinking too much about the rest.