Album Review: Drowning Pool – Hellelujah
2 min read
Let’s scream ‘HELLELUJAH’ because metal rock outfit, Drowning Pool are back with their heaviest record to date. Composed of an impressive 13 tracks, each demand your attention through the electric shrieks of guitar riffs and Jason Moreno’s powerhouse vocals that wake you up, setting aflame to burning emotions.
Coming out on the gate strong, Push opens the unflinching line, “Let me live, let me live with a fuck to give” before later chanting, “I want to die with some peace of mind”, setting the overall attitude of Hellelujah. With many tracks following on a similar path, Drop, Snake Charmer and closer All Saints Day all pulse with powerful riffs and the strain of a chanted chorus.
While intense riffs and drumbeats are a common intro and building element on the tracks of Hellelujah, some break the mould and are as creepy as they come. We The Devil leads you in with an old-timey jazz clip, before assaulting your senses with beats and a gritty, “we are the devil” chant. While Meet The Bullet takes an even more sinister turn with it’s chilling play on a nursery rhyme line, with a child chanting, “if you’re crazy and you know it, shoot yourself”. It’s small details like these that set the tracks apart from the rest, while some do fall flat in comparison to their pulsating brothers, others thrive.
Hellelujah is the home to quite the intense imagery, and lyrical content that plays deeply with the motifs, death and religious characters being at the forefront. Drowning Pool didn’t wade lightly into their musical return on a new label, no, they stormed the gates of hell, challenging anyone in their path in order to produce some serious metal bangers.
