Trapt in nu-metal hell

There must be some sort of infernal machine that produces filler band for modern rock radio. First, start with poorly tattooed, pierced-lipped white teenagers from California. Then, add some radio-friendly angst and chugga-chugga guitar riffs. Next comes a dash of "agro-EXTREME" culture right off a Mountain Dew commercial. The final product, after being cooked for a little under 15 minutes, is a bland cookie-cutter nu-metal band. The customer's primary reaction, if said customer is over 14, is to promptly change the station to something else.\nOne of the few crumbs left from this machine is Trapt. Following the above formula, Trapt managed to push their single "Headstrong" into the number one position on Billboard's Modern Rock charts in 2002. Three years after this success, Trapt is back with Someone in Control in a vain attempt to gain more shelf space.\nThe music is formulaic at best. Every song on the album follows the same pattern. First, there's a soft musical intro, which is sometimes bearable. About 15 to 20 seconds later, vocalist Chris Brown starts some soft whiny lyrics. Then comes the bass-heavy crunch of guitar, followed by Brown shouting the chorus. Then it's back to the soft verse, and so forth. All the tracks on this mercifully short album follow that exact pattern, almost down to the second. Occasionally, there's a dab of another instrument thrown into the mixture, like a cowbell on "Skin Deep" or an acoustic guitar on "Bleed like Me."\nWhile we're on it: Trapt's lyrics set a new standard for "weak." Each song focuses only on "you" and "me," most often in the "why do you not like me" variety. The song titles are terrible. "Every song is either about losing control or trying too hard to have control," proclaims Trapt's Web site www.trapt.com. While a lyrical concept album isn't bad, per se, there's no varition on any of it. Only two songs aren't "you vs. me." "Skin Deep" details what Trapt think of conformity; they don't like it. "Influence" is about drowning sadness in alcohol; they don't like that either. \nThere are only eleven tracks, and each of those tracks varies in length between 3 minutes and 15 seconds and 4 minutes and 15 seconds. Perhaps Trapt knows how ephemeral they are, and since the music is so monotonous, they'd do us all a favor by making less of it.\nTo call Trapt "not very creative" is an understatement. The conveyer belt of radio is pushing this cookie-cutter band on us anyway. I only wish this album came with chocolate chips.