It reads a bit like a title spoken out of obligation. “Back with another one,” orates a beleaguered inner monologue, as if to insinuate that BLACKGOLD themselves are aware of how spent of ideas they already are. It even seeps into the opening skit, where frontman Spookz calls a tour rep to accuse him of “cockblocking [his] band”, and you start to wonder what use any of this is. Volume 2 put a firm stopper on BLACKGOLD’s capacity to be interesting or entertaining, or even to feign that they belong up there with rock and metal’s fast risers with whom they’ve been pedestalled. What’s the point in carrying on like this when they’re self-evidently so far out of their depth?
If anyone has an answer (or anything even remotely resembling one), BLACKGOLD themselves are the furthest from it. It’s a marvel that they’ve even gotten this far, not only with a rap-metal sound that’s horrendously narrow and dated, but without even the faintest smidge of wit or cleverness to go with it. What has enamoured the industry so much that it’s willing to propagate something like this? Is it just the mask gimmick? Or the fact that anything an angsty 14-year-old could find themselves sniffing out has to be given a platform? That’s what led to the nu-metal and emo dogwater throughout the 2000s gaining prominence, lifted by association thanks to the graft of better acts. It’d be nice to say we’ve learned and grown as a species, but obviously we haven’t. Not only are a band as unremarkable as BLACKGOLD continuing upwards, they’re the sole representatives—and, thus, de facto leaders—of this shit.
So, here they are, then—back with another one. It’s only just been a year since their last EP, and the continued lack of inspiration is probably the answer for how they’ve knocked it out so quickly. It is the truest, most concentrated definition of ‘another one’—a helping of entry-level nu- and rap-metal that, without the ‘bravado’ and ‘provocation’ that’s already threadbare at best, would crumble under any kind of scrutiny. It’s a wonder it already hasn’t, in fact. There’s a fucking anti-social media song on here in Social Blackout, with the repeated wham line of “And they got you trapped in the matrix”. It’d be laughable if it weren’t so aneurysm-inducingly corny, with BLACKGOLD being so straight-faced and serious like they’re speaking with such gravity and deep importance. In actuality, it’s impossibly lame.
That’s the thing you might notice about BLACKGOLD—for all the cheeseball references and punchlines they spew out, it’s rare for them to sound like they’re having fun with it. Like, they’re in the same stylistic bracket as Fred Durst, who could frequently play a clown, but would just as often throw his whole chest into it to keep the hits coming. Spookz, meanwhile, comes across like a very small man, unable to get all the way with being either tough or charismatic, so settles on some stillborn lump equidistant from both. “I’m in a mask looking like Stanley Ipkiss,” he proclaims on One Chance, without any charisma or larger-than-life gesticulations to speak of. He might be one of the main factors that weighs BLACKGOLD down the most, such is the apparent nescience of how to make rap-metal like this work at all.
Though let’s not be too hasty to condemn poor Spookz, because his fellow black-and-goldsters aren’t doing much better. The inability to have fun is clearly a bone-deep feature, as the workmanlike rot of Back With Another One’s title is on full display. You may find a groove, but it’s performed by some shockingly flat and unimpactful excuses for metal. And while it’s fair to acknowledge that depth is asking too much of a release like that, you’d hope that means every single other ounce of means and effort would be funnelled into the sound and style. If that’s the case here, then BLACKGOLD are running even emptier than previously thought, given you’d struggle to find much in the way of a riff or tone that connects. Maybe the closest is Today’s My Day, though that’s more due to every composite part feeling like a B-rate Marilyn Manson, which is something that no one would aspire to be on their best days, let alone now.
Beyond that…you get nothing. The low end isn’t heavy enough to justify being the primary instrumental level, and the turntable scratches only bring further to mind some bad parody of what nu-metal used to be. But then, at the literal end of the EP, comes Rains In My Life, which feels like a revelation compared to everything that’s come before. Yeah, it’s not exactly a mountain-mover on its own, but for BLACKGOLD, sticking to a woozy bassline with quick percussion and flows is a leap forward incomparable to what else is on here. It’s a shame it’s not to last when the ending is business as usual, but small victories still count. Maybe it’s evidence that BLACKGOLD can do more, and that they’re open to embracing some of nu-metal’s more creative frills.
If they were, it’d be nice to see it more often, instead of just being a bone thrown to people who dare to expect more than rap-metal’s equivalent of a lay figure. Regardless of how low the bar for this stuff is, Back With Another One seldom even seems like a concerted effort to clear it. This is basic, basic work, where the reasons for lacking any sort of investment whatsoever are spelled out as plain as can be. It also makes you wonder what dirt that BLACKGOLD clearly have on some industry higher-ups, given that there’s no chance that something as nakedly inadequate for primetime as this has platformed like it has. Maybe proudly parading your own limitations as key features like this is novel, but there’s also probably a reason for that. This is what ends up getting made from that approach—‘another one’. Fingers crossed there aren’t many more to come.
For fans of: Hyro The Hero, Hacktivist, WARGASM
‘Back With Another One’ by BLACKGOLD is released on 10th May.
Words by Luke Nuttall
