The Summary Judgment Reviews:
Title: The War of Art
Artist: American Head Charge
Label: American
Release Date: 8/28/01

Rating: 1 Skulls
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    • Reviewed by Redwolff (2/7/02):
    I knew basically nothing about American Head Charge when it appeared in my bag o' tricks from our esteemed editor, except that Musashi doesn't care for them. As usual, I thought he was being dramatic, so I wanted to give them an honest chance. Just because they've jumped on the nu-metal bandwagon doesn't necessarily mean they're bad, right? Well...

    If I'd been at Tower or Virgin and heard The War of Art at one of the listening stations, I might have accidentally spent money on this disc based on the first three songs (which is about all the time I will give to wearing communal headphones). The third song is the best on the album and really quite brilliant, so I can only conclude that they stole the fucking thing off someone else and put their tag on it. How else is it possible that thirteen of the sixteen tracks are formulaic, boring, repetitive and derivative and yet the same guys that wrote those songs wrote "Song for the Suspect?" It just doesn't add up. "A Violent Reaction," the first song, is also quite good, and "Pushing the Envelope," the second, sounds like Machine Head when Machine Head used to sound like Machine Head and not like Little Candy-Assed Rapcore Head. But the rest? Downhill so fast your face will be distorted from the g-forces.

    American Head Charge, I will assume, was visited briefly by the muse, and put all their good songs up front to attempt to hook suckers like myself. They may have ONE SKULL for "Song for the Suspect," which is excellent. I have burned it onto a mix CD, and now I will throw The War of Art into the circular file.
    1 out of 5

    Note from Redwolff (3/7/04): What the fuck was I thinking? This review was a huge mistake. Something saved me from throwing the album into the garbage, as threatened, and War of Art has become one of my favorite albums. I'd give it a four now, if I could write this review over.

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