Static-X
Cult Of Static

When trying to define "the collapse", I always think of this album.

This band, as many know, has had better times, starting with the album "Shadow Zone", which I consider the best.

Following the album tracklist, it starts pretty well since the first two songs are also the best ones. I'm talking about "Lunatic" and "Z28"; these two songs are very enjoyable to listen to with the classic Static-X sound: heavy, slow but with bursts of their classic power.

The worst is yet to come, and it reaches with "Terminal"; this third track didn’t even seem like one of their songs when I first listened to this album, but Wayne's hoarse voice made me realize it was their composition.

Starting from the lyrics, this song seems trivial and the repetitive chorus makes fans like me of the Static-X from the eras of "Cannibal" or "Machine" cringe.

With the two tracks following "Terminal", we have the last burst of energy from Static-X, indeed I'm talking about the songs "Hypure" and "Tera-Fied" which have the best lyrics of the album. This can be explained by the fact that the second song is dedicated to Wayne's wife; these tracks, even if they have a slow rhythm for most of the time, are really listenable for the power they convey with Nick's classic skill on the guitar and the rest of the band.

With "Stingwary", we reach the "Mariana Trench" of the album, with this song being very trivial in terms of lyrics and musicality, not to mention the putrid content in the song's video.

We can say that "Stingwray" serves as the boundary between the listenable part of the album, meaning the part reviewed up to this point, and the unlistenable part, which I prefer not to talk too much about except for the repetitiveness of the songs, with practically similar rhythms and lyrics of disarming banality. With the following tracks, the album closes, marking also the end of the band:

Many claim that the band broke up because of the putrid content of this album, but in my opinion, that was not the only reason. Rather, it was the singer's ego that was literally overshadowing all the other members, forcing, a year after the production of this album, the bassist to leave the group.

My theory is confirmed by the fact that Wayne released his solo album in October 2011, which I will review later on.