Album Review

Papa Roach – Lifeline

• 1st Jul 2009

Depressingly nearly a decade since soundtracking my mid-teens with rap/shouty songs about being all angry and young, Papa Roach are still going, albeit to less fanfare. Things are much changed. Gone, of course, is the rapping; probably wise they got off that sinking ship. But more than that, ‘Lifeline’ is unrecognisable when compared to the early, brattish stuff that got this band famous. It’s a big anthemic sort of a track, very American, very nondescript; Shaddix and co seem to have taken some cues from recent tour buddies Nickleback in recording unoffensive hard rock numbers. The chorus is catchy, the lyrics more introspective, hopeful almost to the undesirable extent of coming over all (shudders) Christian Rock. It’s easy-on-the-ears stuff but, coming at what looks like the twilight of a career initially built on all-out teen angst, it looks Papa Roach may have discarded their meal ticket.