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Rating: ... many people die trying to "make it" in life.
The last sentence of James Lynn Strait enclosed in the last track of the tribute album in question, eerily echoes a damned adverse fate, which on the night of December 11, 1998, took him away along with the group's "mascot": his dog Dobbs. Lynn "tried" in life and he succeeded. He and his band succeeded in proposing a new way of making metal.
Drunken and shouting music, moments of apparent calm, furious and intense restarts; since 1995, these four Californians from Santa Barbara, formed at the behest of Mikey Doling (ex Soulfly), brought to life a sort of free-wheeling western-metal, merging a powerful outpour of punk, metal, funk, hardcore, and at times even jazz. Listening to them was a bit like being catapulted to the center of a massive rodeo, waiting for all hell to break loose. This work should have been their second studio album, and for sure, it wouldn't have had this title. The tracks collected by Doling and Fanhestock (the group's bassist) just waited to be "tamed" by the restless Californian cowboy, but instead, it became a post-mortem production, where the best of the nu-metal scene paid tribute to the unfortunate frontman of the group. Many friends paid their last respects to him, almost an "all-star" selection of the genre: from the leader of Korn Jonathan Davis, to SOAD's Serj Tankian, and then again Max Cavalera, Brandon Boyd of Incubus, Fred Durst, and many others. Each of them reinterprets the songs according to their own style and the usual sound of their bands, the rest is done by the words, loaded with anger and sorrow (worth noting is the emotional "Angel's Son" by Sevendust). Typically "Snot-like", we only find two songs: the unreleased "Absent" (sung by Strait himself), and the frantic "Until next time".
Without a doubt, I believe this would have been the album of the definitive consecration of the four, even today, I believe there are no bands around that somehow "retrace" those odd and engaging sounds. I would add just as convincingly that today's nu-metal, with a few sporadic exceptions, is in a state of perpetual "exhaustion," meaning the ideas truly seem to have run out. For now, let's settle for what was, lamenting what can no longer be.
Strait up Lynn!
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 Starlit Eyes (feat. Serj Tankian) (02:59)
Starlit Eyes
(Lyrics: Serj of System of a Down)
Pushing the law again
Pushing the law again
Justice with a sword
Our smiling knight on board
Opening his heart to everyone
And loving without a doubt
Embracing friends and
Embarrasing foes,
And those who are unjust.
A man true to his heart
without fear or misgivings
With "insecurity" tattooed across his body
The first to accept, the last to dissapoint
He understood all and expected nothing
Now you are free
Free to roam the skies
Now and then visit me
With your starlit eyes
You took all our hearts
With your smile,
And left a legacy untold
You conquered life and fear,
So you see there was no room for you to grow old
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