MUDVAYNE

The waters of the Rio Grande are awash with dreams of hope transformed into nightmares of horror and despair, aliens from across the border viewing the zigzagging river as a mythical portal to a life of new possibilities. Some make it to America, others do not. Some never make it out alive.

There couldn’t be a more appropriate backdrop for the recording of Mudvayne’s latest album, a sonic assemblage of razor-sharp guitar riffs, pounding blast beats and brooding, pissed-off and manic vocals. The album reminds us exactly why they are one of the most dynamic, charismatic and successful bands on the American metal scene, and their track record backs up the claim – Mudvayne and Slipknot are the only two metal acts to have three new albums be certified gold this decade, and Mudvayne are the unrivaled metal kings of rock radio, with no fewer than six Top 10 hits, including the No. 1 singles “Happy?” and “Do What You Do.”

Hailed for broadening metal boundaries with their technical prowess and explosive live shows, frontman Chad Grey, guitarist Greg Tribbett, bassist Ryan Martinie and drummer Matt McDonough are upping the ante once again with their self-titled new release on Epic Records, which has been the band’s home since their debut in 2000.

All physical copies of Mudvayne will have the album’s artwork printed with special black light link that will be invisible to the naked eye. “You’ll be able to hold it up to the sun, tilt is sideways, do anything you want to it, and you’re not going to be able to see a thing, but put it under a black light and it’s going to pop!” raves Gray of the innovative release, which will also be available in special-edition bundles that include black lights.

Not only are Mudvayne the first band to ever fully-utilize black light technology on their albums, they’ve also made certain that the product lives up to the hype, commissioning legendary tattoo artist Paul Booth for the artwork. “After having the idea of doing the black light art, I was concerned about the content not being as compelling and artistic as the concept,” continues the singer, “but when the name Paul Booth was brought to me - it's insane that I didn't think of it myself, having a piece of his work on my arm – I knew that this was going to be dark as hell and amazing! When you open that mind up to a project like this, you never know what you’re going to get, but you can rest assured that the content is going to eclipse the concept.”

Beyond the album’s design and packaging, Mudvayne have again outdone themselves musically, no doubt due, in part, to their unique approach to recording. For the fifth time in five albums, they recorded in an entirely new setting – El Paso, TX, on the desolate banks of the Rio Grande River.

“We’ve always written in isolation mode,” Gray says of the writing and recording process. “Where you’re at in your own head always comes into play when you’re writing and recording, and that is definitely affected by your surroundings.”

Mudvayne couldn’t have scripted a better locale than Sonic Studios, literally a stone’s throw from the Mexican border. With the American side of the Rio Grande representing new life and a fresh start for countless masses that illegally cross the symbolic waters, the southwestern American landscape and jarring realities of the evening news painted a unsettling and different picture for Mudvayne.

Unsettling, different, and inspiring - while Gray is consciously keeping his lyrical sanctum more guarded than he has with recent releases, he does admit that while there was “a whole headspace to writing this record, not every song particularly follows that headspace.”

In other words, the lyrical blasts and emotional releases are as manic and dissident as the musical foundation from which they explode. “I don’t really want to say what holds them all together for me, but there are definitely hints throughout,” says Gray. “Sometimes I just need some me time, you know?”

Gray gets his “me time” on Mudvayne, as does every member of the band. The album opens with an incendiary flurry from drummer Matt McDonough that sets the tone for the music to come, tenacious and acute, with adept attention paid to detail and dynamics. If last year’s The New Game was an exercise in the band’s progressive development, this 11-track canon pays due diligence to their heightened musicianship, while harkening back to the band’s earlier mayhem.

“I’m not going to say that this record is L.D. 50, because it’s not,” says Gray, “but do I think that some of the things on this record are more retro-fitted to early Mudvayne. There are little things throughout the album that throw me back to where we were then, both musically and in terms of song structure. ‘Out to Pasture’ reminds me a lot of ‘Skrying,’ or something off The End of All Things to Come, very brooding, pushing, pissed off and manic...”

‘Brooding, pushing, pissed off and manic’ are words that epitomize Mudvayne, whether within the more melodic constraints of lead single “Scream with Me,” or amidst any of the band’s more aggressive overtures. “Heard it all Before” rides on the back of Greg Tribbett’s guitars, starting dense and paranoid before galloping into a metallic grind that would make Dimebag Darrell proud, and Ryan Martinie’s bass boils over on “Closer,” creating an infectious groove within the frenzied proceedings. Then, on the mellow side of the Mudvayne spectrum, Gray and Tribbett strip down to nothing more than a stark acoustic guitar and raw, hopeless vocals on the album’s closing track, “Dead Inside.”

“We don’t want to be the cart behind whatever the horse is today,” says Gray of Mudvayne’s musical focus. “All that’s important to us is making sure that we’re Mudvayne – we write the music that we’re supposed to be writing, and when we feel good about it, we walk away from it. There’s no second guessing. Music is an art, and artists need to paint with their own brush and choose their own colors.”

Which is exactly what Mudvayne have done, and precisely why they’ve decided to keep their new album self-titled. They’ve sold more than three million records in America alone, have performed for more than one million fans on every continent, are Grammy-nominated, and were the first metal band to ever receive an MTV Video Music Award.

The name Mudvayne says all there is that needs to be said.

--Paul Gargano 11/09