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Rolling Stone (Sept. 28 '00)
Mudvayne, a Peoria, Illinois, band whose major label debut, L.D. 50, is executive produced by Slipknot percussionist Shawn Crahan., paint their faces in kooky designs and cite Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as inspiration. Mudvayne's big songwriting device is old Nirvana strategy: vulnerability in verses, ape shit aggression in choruses and a pregnant moment in between, when you hear the voice cracking with the swell of adrenalin. The interesting thing about Mudvayne is that some of them are fancy musicians: Bassist Ryknow has got jazz fusion somewhere in his background, and the band uses disquieting sounds and spoken words to form collages that are clearly influenced by, and better than, the ones on Slipknot's second album. Mudvayne's biggest drawback, though, is that we might not want to know their psychodramas.
""Blame mother for the sickness," screams singer Kud in "Nothing to Gein"(the title is a reference to Fifties killer Ed Gein). It's one of the many songs these days sung by angry guys with shaved heads about parental figures, real or imagined. "Hypnotizing the ignorant/A little boy's best friend's always his mother/Atleast that's what she said.../I'm just a soiled dirty boy." These are the least aggressive lyrics on the album, but they are clearly the basis of Kud's anger, which tumbles out in lines like, "Let me help you tie the rope around your neck/Let me help to talk you the wrong way off the ledge." (3 Stars)
Metal Edge (Nov. '00)
With their painted faces, brutally heavy sound, and off-the-beaten-track point of origin - in the case, Peoria, Illinois - it's inevitable that Mudvayne will face some comparisons to breakthrough metal superstars Slipknot. But in fact, there are some noticeable differences between the two, a fact supported by the appearance of Slipknot percussionist Shawn "6" Crahan as an executive producer on Mudvayne's major label debut. Would he support a band that was trying to copy his? Probably not.
Both bands create a series of densely packed, bludgeoning soundscapes that feature huge, metallic guitars, unrelenting grooves, and vocals that veer from a melodic moan to a death rattle without warning. But Mudvayne have an overall more intricate songwriting style, and their melodic vocals - courtesy of the talented Chad Gray - tend to be even more accessible than those of 'Knot's Corey Taylor. In fact, with repeated listenings, L.D. 50 may just be the better album, with stronger overall songwriting and a more cohesive feel to the band's sound. "Dig" and "Prod" are intensely brutal songs, yet both are laden with hooks, while "Death Blooms" injects an instantly memorable chorus into the carnage and emerges as an authentically great heavy rock track.
Sometimes Mudvayne are too complex for their own good and pile too much into a single song, leaving some of the material sounding overly intricate and disorganized. But for the most part, the confident, forceful writing and pulverizing sonic assault make this one of the best heavy rock debuts of the year. - Dan Kaye AMG EXPERT REVIEW: Mudvayne boasts a couple of elements that distinguish it from most contemporary heavy metal outfits. The band adopts bizarre facial makeup that is less suggestive of KISS than of a bunch of boys who, having failed to plan their Halloween costumes, threw something together by raiding their mother's vanity case. And lead singer Kud (they have funny pseudonyms, too) doesn't always sing in a typical hardcore howl, sometimes descending into a more conventional voice, as if he is auditioning to replace Sebastian Bach in the Broadway production of Jekyll & Hyde. Such characteristics suggest that, for Mudvayne, the thrash style is something of a pose, a suspicion enhanced by reference to the CD booklet, which contains an acknowledgments section as lengthy and gushy as what you'd find on a teen-pop album. Can these guys giving thanks and love to family and friends be the same ones performing aggressive lockstep metal, spewing obscenities, and singing about suicide? It seems so, but it's hard to take seriously. Maybe deathcore has become as American as mom and apple pie in the 21st century. Or maybe Mudvayne is just going through the metal motions on the way to something else. (The "L.D." in the album's title refers to "lethal death," and the "50" refers to a level of toxicity at which 50 out of 100 test animals will die.) William Ruhlmann (was that a good review or a bad review i couldn't tell if that guy liked it or didn't like it - JaSoN) Mudvayne - L.D. 50
Review by Robert Thompson
Ripping through your aural senses with a style that is both ballistic and thoroughly engaging is the immense musicianship of the young band known as Mudvayne. Following in the footsteps of another brutal rock/metal vaudevillian band in Slipknot, these four musicians of Mudvayne are making their own definite mark on the music industry by expanding and defining musical genres in ways never seen before. Though the comparisons to Slipknot have and will be made and not only for the music, but also for their theatrical stage presence, Mudvayne is truly a separate entity. Combining elements of emotion from unbridled rage to peaceful serenity, epic ever-changing song structures in the vein of Tool, cathartic background composition courtesy of dense programming and samples, and a plethora of intelligent and intricate musicianship and you have an innovative and masterful approach to the "heavy metal" genre. The music flows along with incredible tightness, focusing on an immersion of distorted guitars rife with plenty of effects both masterful and downtuned, mesmerizing bass lines marked by its intricacy and variety, and backed by powerfully chaotic drumwork that spews out with a vicious double kick contrasted by intelligent combinations. In no way is this sound and style simple and easily achieved. In every aspect the music is engaging with its combination of complexity and range of emotions achieved, being simply overwhelming, more like "opera nu-metal", very reminiscent of the band Mushroomhead. Nearly as engaging as the musical composition, are the mighty vocal talents that are unveiled throughout the cd. Setting the pace are the powerful and vicious snarls and screams, beautiful Toolesque ballads, and simplistic ability to switch from one tempo to another of the multi-talented frontman Kud. Displaying a wide array of emotions while maintaining a balance between unchecked passion and refinement, Kud unleashes his vocals with artistic, movie-and-directors-influenced lyrics (Stanley Kubric). The chemistry between the music and vocals is highly evident and is only accented by the chemistry between the main vocals and the backing vocals. Talent is overflowing and the conviction of the words lends a sincere and inspiring aspect that many bands sorely lack. The major-label debut "L.D. 50" and second full-length from the band Mudvayne, is an epic journey into the deepest reaches of the human psyche. Featuring 17 songs of acidic, brutal and engaging hybrid-induced, metamorphosing ingenuity, "L.D. 50" may be an album that not every one will be able to handle. Starting with the first single "Dig", the listener is exposed to the darker side of Mudvayne as this is the most intense and powerful song on the cd. It is the songs like "Severed", "Pharmaecopia", "Prod", and "Cradle" which truly display the band's talent and potential with dense, engaging song structures and enthralling vocals. Songs like "Death Blooms" and "Under My Skin" stray towards the more heavy side contrasted by various musical genres. The only problem with the cd is that it is continuously punctuated by meaningless samples and "songs" that really add no depth to the music and can actually deter from the enjoyment of the cd, though these spacey moments are supposed to actually expand on the overall meaning of the cd. Nevertheless, "L.D. 50" is definitely one of the more innovative and powerful debut cds that you will find out there, period. Mudvayne is taking a genre of "heavy, angry music" brought to the music industry by Pantera, reinvented by Korn, and made popular again by Slipknot, and are reinventing it within their own vision. Truly one of the more talented and innovative bands that I have heard in years, Mudvayne is not afraid to stray from the norms of musical composition and put their own twist on the creation of music while maintaining a delicate balance between artistic refinement and musical energy bursting with immense passion and integrity. While this band will continue to mature and metamorph into an even greater entity, Mudvayne have already proven that they are a band that will be a mainstay within the music industry.
Final Score: 8.75 out of 10
Hit Parader Feb. '01
MUDVAYNE, L.D. 50
To say that there's quite a buzz surrounding the strange band known as Mudvayne would be putting it mildly. In fact, over the last few months these latest Terrors from the Heartland (in their case, Peoria, IL) have raised quite a ruckus with their heavy, complex metallic soundscapes. As shown throughout their debut album, L.D. 50 (which in title refers to the "lethal dose" needed to kill half the test subjects), this highly theatrical quartet proves that there's plenty of substance to back up the headline-grabbing look that they present on stage. If you're a fan of Slipknot, or enjoy over-the-edge metal of any sort, then Mudvayne is a band to be embraced and cherished.
GRADE: B
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