This is, in my opinion, an outstanding "comeback" album and a great late entrant for my own personal album of the year 2006.
I was a bit hesitant to get into this at first, because of the new vocalist... One of my favourite band-related memories is of standing in the Cathouse with my arm around Bonz, the old Stuck Mojo vocalist, singing along to Bon Jovi. 15 year old Lev could only
dream of such a scenario. The fact that he managed to drunkenly sing "
heyyy, we're half there, WOAH-OAH!! WE'RE HALFWAY THERE!!" and thus manage to somehow completely miss out the title lyric of the song didn't ruin the moment in the slightest, haha.
Despite my Bonz appreciation, the new guy (Lord Nelson) has a great deep rapping style that fits the more melodic sound of Stuck Mojo's heavy rock / metal sound perfectly in 2006. I was mad skeptical at first, but I can't help but keep throwing this record on over and over again. It's a fantastic example of how a modern metal record should sound, and catchy to boot. Not ALL rap-metal is late-90's dated garbage!
ANYWAYS, one of the main plus points to this album is that it is available ENTIRELY FOR FREE off of Stuck Mojo's website, as a statement against the usual record label money-grabbing bullshit. Besides the FREE ALBUM, it's worth checking-out the Stuck Mojo website just to read guitarist / songwriter Rich Ward's pretty honest veteran opinion of the music industry. Check it out:
http://www.stuckmojomedia.com
Musically, I'm quite fond of the tracks "That's When I Burn", "Metal Is Dead" and "The Sky Is Falling", so I recommend those for those wishing to sample a few songs before deciding to download the full thing or not.
Another controversial aspect of this album at the moment is the very strong political message on a number of the tracks. The band are one of few willing to speak out against Muslim extremists without holding back their opinions for fear of "racist" backlash claims. A lot of people are buzzing about this matter, as it's sometimes very difficult to draw the line between knowing when someone is making an attack on an entire religion or making an attack on a very small selection of closed-minded people
within that religion. There's a decent little radio interview with Rich Ward that clarified his band's very non-racist stance the matter, from Fox News Radio in America, available to listen to right here:
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/12/1...ist-rich-ward/
It sounds like they're rushing to cover as much as they can in a little amount of time, so the questions and answers alike seem a little vague at times, but there are some interesting points in there. I know it's difficult to listen to an American going on about how much they love their country and hate anyone who opposes it, but it's pretty interesting to see an established musician state a very vocal and unrestrained opinion on one of the most controversial subjects in the whole world today.
There's a video for the song "Open Season" on the go as well, which is causing quite a stir at the moment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymLJz3N8ayI
Apparently this video is getting THOUSANDS of unique views per day, but YouTube refuse to list it in it's "Most Popular" or "Most Viewed" lists for unknown reasons.
To be honest, I personally am not MAD interested in the political slant of the album... I just included it in this post because it's somewhat refreshing to see a no-holds-barred commentary from a musician in today's society in which people are often afraid to speak their mind in case they offend the wrong people... And I know that SOME of you people on AltNation who
aren't me and DO like to discuss this kind of thing will LOVE debating the matters raised by the band.
I just think it's good music, and free, and am excited to see one of my old favourite bands come back with a kick.
SO CHECK THIS SHIT OUT, YO.
Stuck Mojo - "Southern Born Killers" 
