The Rebel You Love to Hate

The Rebel You Love to Hate, right from the borrowed MSG logo on the cover, is hardly worth discussing as an actual entry in the band’s catalogue considering it’s more or less a spiteful joke. It’s no wonder that Billy Milano ended up just giving this thing away on the internet. Half the album is composed of thinly veiled imitations of other artists popular in the early 2000’s, particularly Limp Bizkit/Eminem (“Wigga”), Rammstein (“The Men of Stein”), Rage Against the Machine (you guess), and, entirely out of context, Kiss (“Get Ready”), though that last one seems torn between parody and homage. Each song is done in the original band’s style, obviously in the name of satire, but that doesn’t make it anymore appetizing to the aural palette. I get it Billy, you fucking hate techno. Me too, so I won’t mind so much if you write a song about how much you think it sucks. But writing a ‘techno’ song about how much techno sucks, minus the initial chuckle, sucks for your techno-hating niche audience about as much as an actual techno song does. Same goes for the rap-core stuff, complete with excessive goofy sampling and mocking, Tom Morello guitar squealy nonsense.

In this sense, half of the album is disposable humor, not so unlike Milano’s earliest endeavors. However, the other half can’t even amount to this, consisting of nothing more than the stunted groove-core from his 90’s portfolio. While I can see the humor in the ultra-patriotism displayed in “Making Friends is Fun” and “Assghanistan,” nothing about the backing music brings a grin to this face. This has got to be the laziest groove shit I’ve ever heard in my entire life, and I’ve heard every other M.O.D. album! The title track is as boring and stupid as anything Billy has composed to date (check it out on the interweb if you don’t believe me) and those other two originals are hardly more involved. The best track of all is “He’s Dead Jim” (if only because the lyrics are funny) and imagine that, M.O.D. didn’t write it.

The only positive to this record is that which has always justified Milano in the music scene: his outlandish sense of humor. The Rebel You Love to Hate may just be Billy at his most legitimately irate and results in a nice handful of smile-worthy situations. There’s that “ein, two, tres, GO” bit from the Rammstein parody that immediately wrings out a laugh, and I especially like that “fuck you , fuck Tibet, fuck your fans” bit in “Rage Against the Mac Machine.” Petty you say? Juvenile? Sure, but Milano’s on drugs, and he’s fucking PISSED. If he hadn’t written such a slow and wimpy groove fest, his rage might have propelled a really wicked album.

Finally, there’s a couple of redundant radio edits at the end if you’ve managed to endure this much suffering and are still thirsty for more, as if anyone really needs to hear the title track three times in an hour. This too was probably done in outright mockery of label “bonus track” practices, but goddammit, it’s not that funny. And when “funny” is all that your album has going for it, including even more shit-eating tracks should be among the least of your worries.

Contemporarily, M.O.D. has reunited yet again. If their next comeback album turns out anything like this one, sweet Lucifer help us all.

MOD has always been known for their somewhat comedic posturing. A mishmash of Mucky Pup-like Hard Core and SOD (what else did you expect of Billy Milano) like Thrash with lyrics that are known for their directness and satire. With the new album little has changed. The music is tight and groovy and Milano spits his words out accordingly. Unfortunately there are no lyrics included with the promo, which makes it very hard to pass judgement upon the diatribe Milano has undoubtedly unchained. And the thing is that the lyrics were always the main asset of MOD. Ranging from Billy’s hate for the Middle East (Ass-ganistan) and Rage Against The Machine (Rage Against The Mac Machine) to his distrust of German bands that glorify march music and other Reich symbolism (The Men Of Stein). But I am hard pressed to come up with some really cool quotes so you’ll just have to listen to the album. And you know? The long and short of it is really simple:

Everyone who likes their metal with humour and has already bought or listened to MOD or SOD can go ahead and buy this album Everyone who takes offence at Reactionary humour or rudeness leave it in the store. The only thing that really sucks about this album is the fact that there are but 8 new tracks (plus 4 radio edits that sound identical to the originals) and that this thing is marketed as a full-length.

(This review was originally written for http://www.lordsofmetal.nl and is republished with kind permission of the webmaster)

Long gone are those days of S.O.D. and M.O.D. lashing out short, sometimes one minute songs making fun of something, or humoring over politics and the world. After the dissolvment of S.O.D., Milano retook up position as bass player and lead singer of the famous, hillarious thrash band M.O.D. Seven years later, a new album will be produced. And let me tell you, the sound is different, very different.

Long gone are those days of short songs. Remember when M.O.D. had over twenty-two songs on an album? Well this album only has nine songs, thirteen songs on the full length (including radio edited versions of some songs). Music wise, this album is a lot different from M.O.D.'s past stuff. No longer carrying on a fast action, thrash assaulting, bass slamming riffs, but a heavier sound. The riffs aren't thrashy like they used to be, their more up to beat, almost nu-metal sounding at sometimes. Even though it is different, it doesn't mean it isn't good. They still have a lot of headbanging riffs, like the intro riff to Making Friends is Fun. Another great musical engima in this album is the sound effects and other added sounds for the laughter, which I will explain next.

M.O.D. has always been about taking something, especially a hot topic, and making fun of it. This album does just that, and much more. The opening song Wigga explains what a Wigga is. A white boy trying to act like a gangsta. Milano uses rap style of lyrics in this song, but it is hillarious and stresses the point of how stupid Wiggas are. Making Friends is Fun and Ass Ghanistan, is about terrorists and how the US will kick their asses. Probably the two best songs, and the funniest ones are De men of Stein and Rage Against the Mac Machine. Rage Against the Mac Machine, without a doubt is making fun of the band Rage Against the Machine. De men of Stein is making fun of techno music and the band Rammstein. They even use the techno sounds that are in the song Du Haust to help prove their dislike for the neo-facist band. Sound effects and other noises make this album more hillarious; another example of sound effects are in the song He's Dead Jim, which is a song about being an extra on Star Trek. They put in all the stupid sounds of being transported and vaporised and even voices of some of the real Star Trek characters.

The new M.O.D. is very different, and I am thinking most people won't appreciate this album. They threw the thrash idea out and got a new heavier sound. One thing they did keep was the funny lyrics and making fun of topics and people. I would recommend checking it out, but not the best album of 2003, let alone M.O.D.'s.