Here at The Daily Campus, we receive a plethora of freestuff from record labels eager for some good reviews.

Sometimes it’s little more than a sampler of agroup’s latest efforts, sometimes it’s a full album.For the longest time, this mountain of music has remained untouchedfor fear of what lies beneath its shrink-wrapped surface of badcover art and exclamation mark-laden cover letters.

After all, if a record label has resorted to sending full albumsto a college newspaper, they must be desperate.

But no longer – I have taken it upon myself to diveheadfirst into this stagnant pool of mediocrity and bring to thesurface the very worst that music has to offer. You may not agree,you may think I’m too harsh, but that’s the nature ofthis business.

This is Bad Press.

Mushroomhead XIII

Though it may seem like it, I honestly don’t have a biasagainst death metal.

It’s an entirely legitimate musical genre, I suppose, soit would be wrong of me as a music columnist to be prejudicedagainst it.

It’s just that we get a lot of death metal here at theEntertainment desk, much to my bewilderment, and being exposed toso much raw-throated angst can make a guy pretty cynical.

“Hey, are you going to do another ‘Bad Press’this week?” someone asked me.

“My life is a black pit of despair,” I answered.

“So… that’s a no?”

“I hate this world and everyone in it, I want todie,” I replied.

When XIII arrived on my desk, I could tell right away what itwas.

Before I even picked it up, I began running through my patented‘Bad Press’ Unoriginal Death Metal Checklist®.

Is the album cover very dark? Check.

Does the album cover feature disturbing, vaguely evil imagery?Check.

Is the typeface on the cover fractured, “edgy,” andvirtually illegible? Check. We’re on a roll.

Then I turned the album over and scanned the list of songs.”Kill Tomorrow…” “Sun Doesn’tRise…” “The Dream is Over…””Destroy the World Around Me…” Wow. Someone surehad a case of the Mondays.

Continuing my external analysis of XIII, I opened the case andexamined the liner notes.

It was at this time that I realized that I had heard ofMushroomhead before.

It’s one of those eight-man groups who paint their facesand/or wear masks during performances; you know, exactly likeSlipknot but entirely different.

They’re lauded as being “radically different”from your typical, predictable death metal act.

“Well,” I thought as I took out the CD and put itinto my computer, “maybe I’ll be surprised by thisone.”

I wasn’t.

To be honest, it’s not the worst death metal I’veever heard. Mushroomhead has two singers, one of whom singsrelatively normally, so you feel like you’re being sung to bya pit bull for only half the time.

The guitar work is okay, the keyboard sounds tinny and verysynthetic, and the few quiet, contemplative moments in the albumare few and far between.

For a band whose selling point is “being unlike otherdeath metal acts,” Mushroomhead sounds remarkably like everyother death metal act.

But seriously, what makes death metal bands so grouchy all thetime?

“Grr, nothing goes my way, I am upset and possiblysuicidal about this.”

Why can’t death metal groups sing about happy, smileythings?

I would pay good money to hear a death metal band sing aboutpuppies, rainbows, and joyful romps in verdant meadows.

They would be called Sunshine Overdrive and they’d marketthemselves as a life metal band – self-enrichment throughcrunching power chords.

Goodbye, depression! Hello, audio Prozac!

Omar & The HowlersBoogie Man

This is not a bad review. I repeat, this is not a bad review.Boogie Man is actually pretty catchy, if you like bluesy boogierock.

I am including this album in “Bad Press” because oftwo disappointments that occurred during the process of listeningto it.

The first disappointment was the condition of the plastic casethat held the CD.

I realize that sending music in the mail is a touchy enterprise,but you’d think that record labels would take just a littlemore care in sending out promotional music.

The CD case itself was cracked along the front and back, sobadly that a jagged piece was poking out far enough to scratch me.When I opened the jewel case, I was showered with little pieces ofplastic.

Closer inspection revealed that these pieces were the littleteeth that usually hold the CD in place. Someone must have decidedthat Boogie Man would serve a better purpose as a Frisbee than aCD.

The second disappointment happened when I took the CD out of thebadly damaged case. Directly under the CD is a picture of OmarDykes, the lead singer, who looks exactly like John Goodman.

For a good two seconds, I thought it actually was John Goodman,and my heart was filled with glee. A John Goodman album! It must bemy birthday! Then I realized it wasn’t John Goodman, and myday grew just a little darker.

It only hurt that much more when I listened to the CD andnoticed that Omar Dykes not only looks like John Goodman, butsounds exactly like him, too.

I tried pretending that it really was John Goodman who wassinging the blues, but it’s not the same. It’s justsome guy who looks and sounds like him. Like listening to an Elvisimpersonator, it’s close, but not the same thing.

Oh well.

One of these days, my dreams of Sunshine Overdrive and JohnGoodman Sings The Blues will come true. One day… oneday.