Band:	Static-X
Album:	Start A War
Style:	Industrial metal, Nu metal
Release date:	June 14, 2005
A review by:	jupitreas

Disc I
01. The Enemy
02. I'm The One
03. Start A War
04. Pieces
05. Dirthouse
06. Skinnyman
07. Just In Case
08. Set It Off
09. I Want To Fucking Break It
10. Night Terrors
11. Otsego Amigo
12. My Damnation
13. Brainfog

Disc II [X-Rated] [bonus DVD]
Making Of Start A War.

I keep on thinking what happened to Static-X, a band I was fairly interested in back in the late 90s, when they were creating their own brand of somewhat goofy and demented revivalist industrial metal. It seems like the band has decided to strip themselves completely of any traces of originality that they ever had and instead focus on making the most bland and uninspired nu-metal imaginable.

There are very few good things to say about this album so I will get them out of the way in this short paragraph."Otsego Amigo" and "My Damnation" are relatively good songs and although they would be quite unimpressive were they to appear on, say, Machine, they seem fairly acceptable here, mostly due to the laughably poor quality of the remaining tracks. The other semi-interesting moment of this album is the song "Dirthouse", which uses very retro-sounding, early Killing Joke style keyboards to accompany the otherwise boring riffs.

Otherwise, this albums is simply dreadful. I seem to recall Wayne Static having a pretty interesting voice back on Machine and their debut; however, his performance is embarrassing here. The rest of the band is similarly pathetic. Static-X used to use electronica to quite successfully cover up their shortcomings as musicians. They do not do this anymore as the only trace of any kind of intelligent use of electronica is the last track of Start A War, which is an expendable and generic techno track. Being versatile is obviously not something that this band wants to be known for since most of the tracks here are dumb and archaic nu-metal, which would already be considered lackluster in 1998. In 2005, it just seems like a joke, albeit sadly not a very funny one.

Start A War is the worst album I have reviewed so far and it doesn't seem like anything will take its place in the near future. I advise anyone to stay clear of this pile of garbage.