Papa Roach Infest CD

Papa Roach was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award for Best New Artist and "Broken Home" was nominated for Best Short Form Music Video.

Papa Roach's major label debut on Dreamworks Records. With songs about everything from divorce ("Broken Home"), to struggles with alcohol ("Binge"), the four-piece, hard rock outfit laces the listener with magnum doses of reality.

Written mostly with its audience's tortured psyches in mind, INFEST aims to let the kids know that they aren't alone in dealing with the pressures and obstacles life can bring, with songs such as the socially conscious "Last Resort," which discusses suicide, alienation and isolation. The production on the album, via Jay Baumgardner, is polished and yet passionate, and singer Coby Dick's vocals are stingingly sharp and energetic. Some of INFEST's other highlights are "Dead Cell," the snappily-titled "Between Angeles and Insects," and "Never Enough." INFEST is a consistently impressive debut.

Papa Roach's debut album Infest quietly became a Top 20 hit in the first half of 2000, slipping underneath the radar of most pop critics and fans. It's easy to see why the pop elite passed them by, since the quartet just isn't hip, and since they are pushing an amalgam of every heavy sound that was popular in the late '90s. Basically, Infest is pitched somewhere between the classic grunge/industrial of the early '90s with hints of late-'90s behemoths like Korn and Limp Bizkit. There's singing, but it's balanced by rapping, and the heavy riffs are run through effects boxes that give it the controlled distortion common to alt-metal; it's loud, but you can hear each note being articulated. Lyrically, there's a lot of angst here, directed at everyone from parents and society to themselves. Strangely, each member thanks their families and God in the liner notes, but that's sort of beside the point, since this has the form and feeling of angst-ridden, post-grunge, rap-riddled alt-metal. Is it good? Well, if you're not into this stuff, this won't change your mind, but the band does work up some energy, sounds pretty muscular on most of the album, and has some good hooks, even if they tend to overplay their hand by throwing too many hooks into the riffs or screaming just a bit to much. Still, that's par for the course with alt-metal. So, it winds up that Papa Roach doesn't really distinguish itself from the pack in terms of sound, but they do stand out in terms of capability and consistency. Infest is a pretty solid alt-metal record, circa 2000, both for better and worse. It's a little generic, yes, but as far as the genre goes, it's not bad. [A Japanese version included bonus tracks.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Japanese edition of their successful 2000 full length debut album includes 'Legacy' and 'Dead Cell (Live' as bonus tracks. Geffen.

Includes 2 bonus tracks.

Recorded at NRG Recording Services, North Hollywood, California.

Papa Roach: Coby, David B., Tobin, Jerry.

Additional personnel: DJ A.M. (scratches); Aimee Echo, Rodney Duke (background vocals).

Rolling Stone (1/4/01, p.106) - Ranked #10 in Rolling Stone's Top 10 Albums of 2000.
Rolling Stone (7/20/00, p.139) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...They are to Rage as the young Stone Temple Pilots were to Pearl Jam....improving upon the original with songs that are more hummable than most fast-food jingles..."
Q (11/00, p.113) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Combines sinewy Rage Against The Machine riffage with traditional metal dynamics and frontman Coby Dick's melodic, quasi-rap stylings...this year's essential accessory for Middle America's trenchcoat and pipe-bomb brigade..."
CMJ (6/00, p.69) - "...Ushers in the Bushification of rap-metal....canned grudge-groove....[the] subtle and complex guitar interplay over hefty axe-grinding adds dimension..."
NME (Magazine) (10/14/00, p.40) - 6 out of 10 - "...A big moshpit soundtrack, a corner sighted...in America's disastrous intergenerational relations..."