Drowning Pool Album: “Full Circle”

Full Circle indeed....Soil and Drowning Pool are road buddies at the beginning of this decade; then Dave Williams (Drowning Pool's original, one-of-a-kind singer) tragically passes in 2002. Ryan McCombs writes Remember for Dave Williams and records it with Soil on their awesome 2004 release Redefine

. Jason 'Gong' Jones joins Drowning Pool with a new sound...growling, unlistenable vocals

. Ryan leaves Soil for "family reasons", and AJ Cavalier joins Soil with a new sound...growling, unlistenable vocals

. Jason Jones leaves Drowning Pool in 2004 almost as fast as he joined, and Ryan McCombs joins Drowning Pool in the summer of 2005 almost as fast as he departed ways with Soil. Six years after it all began we have a "Full Circle". Whew!

Full Circle is a good CD. Is Full Circle a classic like Drowning Pool's 2001 debut Sinner

?...No. Is it as good as Soil's Redefine?...Not even. Is it better than Drowning Pool's Desensitized or Soil's True Self?...Way better than both. Full Circle is just not great...like I wanted it to be.

Full Circle gets off to a very promising start with a couple of really hard rockers. Track 1 (Full Circle) and Track 2 (Enemy--the best track on the CD) are fist pumpin', foot stompers. Track 6 is the radio-played Soldiers, and most reminiscent of the anthem rockers that both Soil and Drowning Pool built their fan base from. And Tracks 10 (No More) and 11 (Love X2) are a couple of good stand out rockers. But as I gave the disk repeat listens, I became a bit less impressed with Full Circle...not many of the other tracks were really "sticking" with me.

The track (Reason I'm Alive) that Nikki Sixx and DJ Ashba

contributed to is fair at best, and even the cover of Billy Idol's Rebel Yell doesn't pack the energy that the original

held.

Perhaps I built Full Circle up in my mind too much after two long years of anticipation? Full Circle just doesn't reach out of your player and grab you by the neck like DP's Sinner did and Soil's Redefine did. When band members with two great Hard Rock CDs under their belts team up I expect great (classic) things, but I think that I may have set the bar too high.

What you have with Full Circle is a very talented singer joining three very talented musicians to try to recreate some magic that was made with their respective original brothers. Of course it works sometimes (Iron Maiden, AC/DC...even Van Hagar), but it mostly fails. Full Circle is by far not a failure. It's good stuff. There were just some very big footsteps to follow leading to some very high expectations.

Overall, hard rockers that like clearly sung lyrics and melodic rhythms should give Full Circle a chance.

Final word: I'm surprised that CJ Pierce (guitar), Mike Luce (drums) and Stevie Benton (bass) never changed the name of the band (like Rage Against The Machine did when Zack de la Rocha left and Chris Cornell joined). Let's face it...Dave Williams WAS Drowning Pool. Okay, I can see that Soil Pool would definitely not have worked. But after Dave, you really had a brand new band. The problem with Full Circle is it's not really Drowning Pool. So maybe that's part of my problem; they tell me I bought a Drowning Pool CD...but did I really?

Like many of the other reviewers, Dave's death was sad for many of us and of course made everyone wonder what would become of the extremely talented CJ, Stevie and Mike. Well with Full Circle, it's been answered and includes the addition of Ryan McCombs as their new lead. It is so wonderful to hear his voice again, and it goes so well with the great lyrics and music they have all written.

The album opens with the rockin' title song, Shame is just amazing and Reborn sort of says it all.

Soldiers is definitely a fave and I am currently listening to Upside Down and tapping along. The cover of Idol's Rebel Yell is SO much fun and a great idea realized.

Get this and have some fun with some great rock music!

Congrats, fellas! \m/

Having been a fan of Drowning Pool and also a big fan of Soil, I can't find anything wrong with this CD. I must admit, when Ryan McCombs left Soil, I was not happy. But then I later heard that he was picked up by DP and that made things a lot better.

This first collaberation is a great CD. It tends to be a bit dark in it's content. It seems that a majority of the songs are about love gone wrong. In that regard, kind of depressing, but the music is great.

I can't wait to hear their future efforts as their jelling as band mates should just get better with time. I am biased by both of these groups so I give it five stars.

I'll get right to the point: anyone that gives this album five stars must love anything metal. And I'm not rating it a three because it just isn't Dave Williams (even though Sinner WAS their best album). It might be hard for some to follow Drowning Pool because on each album there has been a different lead vocalist, undoubtedly due to twists of fate in some cases. Dave died; then Jason Jones quit; now, Ryan McCombs is here. But the band's latest album Full Circle isn't all that hot.

It's not that the music is bad, but the lyrics and the way that Ryan says them brings things down ("Love x2", anyone?). "Enemy" and "Duet" could have been left behind, and "Shame" is just that. The only songs that really stand out on here are "Paralyzed" and "37 Stitches". The cover of "Rebel Yell" is pretty decent too, but it's no saving grace. Though the album is called Full Circle, it really feels more like a crescent.

Anthony Rupert

This album is incredible !!! One of the best pure power vocals ive heard in years... Man, this guy can sing !! My vote for best album of the year..