It was the summer of 2003 and my friends suggested we see a movie so we end up seeing Freddy vs Jason which I didn’t really care for at the time but was happy that I saw it since these were two horror icons of my childhood, movie was ok but I was recommended the soundtrack by some friends and decided to buy it. It got some rotation but it was never really a great soundtrack for me oddly enough one of my friends who I saw the movie with wanted to buy it after listening to it once in my car. At this point we had already reached the peak of nu-metal but we still see plenty of it here as well as some other bands that were differentiating themselves from that genre.
The album begins with an Ill Niño called “How Can I live?”, they were headlining the album or whatever that can be called. I had actually completely forgotten this band even existed. It’s a very safe song from them and the video is also very boring with a girl apparently having a bad dream but besides that little connection to Freddy or the movie so a far cry from some of Freddy’s musical past. Now that I’ve re-discovered this band I’ll likely talk about them a little more another day. Not really sure why this was the song they tried to market the album with, it’s even featured in the movie which oddly it fits decently enough since it’s such a hokey movie.
For most the album like the first song we get very safe tracks from each band and not something outstanding, I’m not saying they’re necessarily bad songs but just that they aren’t something outside of what they normally and in some cases a very generic track. Hatebreed “Condemned Until Rebirth”, Slipknot “Snap” [Demo], Sevendust “Leech”, Powerman 5000 “Drop the bombshell”, Murderdolls “Welcome to the strange”, Stone Sour “Inside the Cynic”, Lamb of God “11th Hour” all sound like songs from them for better or worse. Seether’s “Out of my Way” stands out a bit, Killswitch Engage “When Darkness Falls” is when they switched singers and had a less interesting vocalist, DevilDriver “Swinging the Dead” who was debuting during this time. We get Sepultura alongside Mike Patton in “The Waste” but ironically it is a bit of a waste. “Trigger” by In Flames is normal In Flames, they were beginning to get more popular but it’s still a great track. Oddly enough it’s Spineshank of all bands stands out even if it’s a standard track with “The beginning of the End” but standards are not really that high with so many generic tracks.
Mushroomhead is featured in the soundtrack with “Sun doesn’t rise” which I always felt as their “we’ve decided to go a bit more mainstream” song. It’s a fairly good song and the video is also pretty cool. The song got played plenty during this time and I think it even made it in the headbangers ball soundtrack as well. I’d continue talking about them but I’m reminded I missed them when I went to the Hell & Heaven festival but oh well I still have an XL mushroomhead long sleeve t-shirt I use as pajamas during the winter since it was always too edgy for me to ever wear it more than once outside.
“Middle Of Nowhere” by The Blank Theory feels out of the 90s and is a nice addition and we also saw the return of Nothingface with “Ether” which is a softer song for them but one that got me into them. Chimaira “Army of me” hides its way here as well. From Autumn to Ashes is next with “The After Dinner Payback” and I was shocked to see this song being from this band as I always associated it with another band but I’m glad things are cleared up on my head now since it’s good. We close with “(We Were) Electrocute” by Type O Negative which is different from what you find in the album and it’s nice to have them here.
These soundtracks were always a good bang for the money since they usually included around 20 tracks or so and that was enough to find some decent new bands but of course in the post-napster era they were becoming more and more obsolete. It’s a rather generic compilation but gives you enough to be able to check out different bands so it does an ok job in that weird transition period as nu-metal was in its last breath and other sub-genres of metal were trying to become the new it. Give it a listen if you’re not familiar with some of the bands but it can safely be skipped, especially if you wanted some type of Horror theme from the movie, it’s just a generic metal compilation from the early 2000’s.
