The Rebel You Love To Hate

When M.O.D. first came onto the scene I was still in college and was lucky enough to see them in a small club up in Syracuse, N.Y.. Watching Billy Milano trying to walk on people's heads and throw attempting stage divers back into the crowd to their doom was hilarious. ""U.S.A. For M.O.D." was a classic in itself. It contained Anthrax thrashing with S.O.D sarcastic lyrics; making fun of anything Billy Milano had an opinion on: from trends, other musicians and news of the day items to personal experiences. After their 1989 effort "Gross Misconduct" (which I really liked), the band broke up and I lost track and interest of anything they did when they reformed in 1992. So it's been almost 7 years since the last M.O.D. album and now we have "The Rebel You Love To Hate": 13 tracks (5 of which are either radio edits of the same songs or re-mixed versions) of heavy, rude, sarcastic metal tunes. The production is crunchy, heavy and produced very well. These days Billy's voice is a bit gruffy when he sings in low tones, sounding close to Testament's Chuck Billy at times. M.O.D. continues to play what they do best; Making fun of that which they don't see eye to eye on. The great thing about the songs is that M.O.D. can almost pass for a great cover band, since some of the bands they are making fun of they actually sound like........ The first track, "Wigga" makes fun of white rappers, (such as Eminem, Kid Rock) trying to act like black rappers. This track seems to take Rage Against The Machine influences and has Red Hot Chilli Pepper type rapping. Lyrics like "white dudes can't jump or dance..." and "pull your pants up" poke fun of the way a wigga dresses. "De Men of Stein" targets the band Rammstein. It includes some German talk at the beginning, distorted and tinny vocals, some keyboards and sounds very techno and machine like, the way a Rammstein song would. "Rage Against The Mac Machine" is a song that pokes fun at, you guessed it.........Rage Against The Machine. The Tom Morelo digitech whammy sounds are there as well as the Zack de la Rocha styled vocals at times.. The song begins the way "Killing In The Name" does. It also has the "Gorilla Radio" distorted talking. And lyrically, they attack Rage's political views; exploiting them as hypocrites. Billy sounds very angry at them. "Get Ready" is in my opinion the best track on the album. It's a Kiss song all the way. It seems more like a tribute to Kiss than an attempt to make fun of them. The way M.O.D. does this song is comparable to how Weird Al Yankovic would approach it. They take bits and pieces of different Kiss music and lyrics, putting them together to make one hell of a song! The track begins with the same drum pattern as the beginning of "Strutter", then goes into "Dr. Love" styled chord progressions, complete with the trademark Peter Criss cowbell. Billy sounds so much like Gene Simmons on this that it is scary! "Someone call on the Dr., got the cure on the tip of my tongue. Call me God of Thunder, you wanted The Best so we rock on" and "Get up, get down". We even have Ace Frehley repetitive soloing and a little bit of "Detroit Rock City" to close the song out. There is a (Kinda Live) version of "Get Ready" that tries to give this song a live feel by adding a live crowd in the background. M.O.D. even imitates Paul Stanley gestures to the crowd the way he does on Kiss "ALIVE!". (check out the Kiss "ALIVE!" review here at Metal Reviews for some revealing facts about the recording of "ALIVE!") "Ass Ghanistan" attacks that dry shit hole in the middle east. It begins with some sitar like sounds, then a full assault of "obliterating their asses" with missles. "Some fucking Jihad.....". By far the heaviest and most pissed off track on the album. "He's Dead Jim" takes the famous quote from Star Trek's Dr. McCoy. Complete with some tv dialogue, sound effects, etc. The guitar at the beginning tries to emulate the tv theme. Overall, "The Rebel You Love To Hate" contains raw energy and is funny lyrically. I do wish there were more songs than just eight originals. If you like sarcastic bands like Lordi and Gwar, then this us up your alley.