Dirtbag

Album Review

The long-gestating Korn spin-off group Stillwell (once known as Capital Q) is led by Korn bassist-turned-guitarist Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu with drummer Noah "Wuv" Bernardo from P.O.D. Stillwell helpfully calls its music "street metal," which seems to be a combination of rap and heavy metal, but for the most part on Dirtbag, it sounds like a conventional, straightforward hard rock group not unlike Korn, with some of the funk of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Stillwell is mindful of its heritage, throwing a little bit of "The Train Kept A-Rollin'" into lead-off track "On & Poppin'," and turning in a copy of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" that even replicates the Jimmy Page guitar solo. Toward the end of the disc, vocalist Q-Unique reverts more to his rapper persona, providing parallels between the Bible and the history or rap and hard rock in "They All Had Their Hands Up," in which specific musicians are equated to Biblical figures. In the final track, "Street Metal," he begins to sound like Chuck D of Public Enemy. A stint as opening act to Korn seems like an appropriate form of exposure for Stillwell, which here comes off as a busman's holiday for Fieldy.