Customer Reviews

Full Circle

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great album. Yes, since dave died, they have never quite recovered, until now as they are given new life, reborn with the help of soils' former lead singer Ryan Mccombs. Great metal, and power vocals. Its to bad this conglomeration didn't happen earlier, but Soil was solid as well at that time, riding high on the Scars album. Soil and Drowning pool were close, toured the nation together at the time of Dave's death, in fact Ryan and Dave use to sing with eachothers groups periodically. So thank goodness this happened. I can just say its solid from start to finish, can't pick any favorites yet, but full circle and Soldier are awesome. This is a must have for metal fans, just a great power album. This will get your blood flowing. Check it out.

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 Redefine . Jason 'Gong' Jones joins Drowning Pool with a new sound...growling, unlistenable vocals Desensitized . Ryan leaves Soil for "family reasons", and AJ Cavalier joins Soil with a new sound...growling, unlistenable vocals True Self . 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 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 The Heroin Diaries contributed to is fair at best, and even the cover of Billy Idol's Rebel Yell doesn't pack the energy that the original Rebel Yell 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?

I remember the day I heard about Dave passing on a few days after I saw him at Ozzfest and I was truly a bit sad over it. DP was just coming onto the scene and building up a nice fan base around the country, I mean, who didn't love hearing Bodies come on the radio? I was not a huge fan of the desensitized album, however still enjoyed the fact that despite the sub-par vocalist, the musical aspect was still quite good. I'd have to say I hold DP in pretty high regard for the fact that they have weathered the things that have come their way and they are still willing to come out and play music for us. Onto their 3rd vocalist, Ryan McCombs, well what can I say, he is definitely one of the better sounding vocalists of this day and age and his foray with Soil was amazing. So when I heard that he was going to be fronting for DP I was simply elated.

And that elation has come to fruition in Full Circle.
An absolutely amazing 3rd outing from a band who truly has in their own right come Full Circle

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/

I can clearly remember where i was and what i was doing when i heard that Dave Williams died, about three days after i'd seen Drowning Pool at Ozzfest.

I can clearly remember when he was replaced and how excited i was, until i heard Step Up for the first time. Then i saw the music video, and then the album cover, and i cried. I never bought Desensitized, and i never will. If somebody gave it to me i'd put it in the microwave.

I can clearly remember bouncing off walls and screaming with joy when i heard that Jason Jones had been ejected from the band. That guy couldn't write lyrics to save his life.

I can clearly remember when Ryan McCombs was selected to replace Jason Jones and crying with joy. I liked Soil when they first came out. I like Ryan's voice and his lyrics. So i sat and impatiently waited for them to release something, anything, and when i heard Soldiers, i wasn't disappointed. I saw Drowning Pool about a month ago with Ryan, and they sounded awesome. The energy was there, it was definitely the band reborn. I thought it was great how obviously embarrassed the band is of Jason Jones; the only song from Desensitized they played was Step Up and they got it out of the way early in the set. They were selling copies of Sinner but not Desensitized. They had stuff with pictures of the band with Dave and the band with Ryan but nothing for Jones.

I have been waiting for this album for six long years and it has not let me down. I've not listened to it enough yet to pick favorite songs but by the end of the month the whole thing'll be in my iTunes most played list. Everything is as solid and pleasing as Drowning Pool should be. It may be true that in recent years my musical tastes have shifted from the vein of Korn and Disturbed (matured? i hesitate to use the word) toward things like Ani DiFranco and Portishead, but this still pumps me up as much as Sinner ever did.

I can't wait to see what great things are to come in Drowning Pool's bright future. I'd love to see them reclaim their past glory.

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 assumed Drowning Pool was done for after their original singer died, esspecially after their second frontman departed/got kicked out due to personal conflicting differences with the rest of the band.... But shortly after, when ex Soil lead Ryan McCombs was named as their 3rd singer, I was overjoyed. I was familiar with Soil's work from their first 2 records, and looked forward to having Ryan as a part of Drowning Pool.
What we get on this new record is everything that was great about Soil, and everything that was great about Drowning Pool, combined into an eclectic metal and hard rock. The Texas rock band has broken out of that mold of the nu-metal era, and has forged it's way into the new modern metal/rock scene with FULL CIRCLE..... The lyrical content on this record has more depth than both previous albums combined, and has a nice flow from gritty and fast gut bucket rock with tracks like Full Circle, Enemy and Shame, to a more laid back rock like the songs Paralyzed and 37 Stitches.
Drowning Pool is back, and is better than ever.

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

I really enjoyed this album but whoever mixed and produced this album has done Drowning Pool a complete dis-service. There is way too much low-end in the mix and not enough mid and/or treble meaning the music doesn't really pack the punch that it should.

I mean the songs are quality, if not entirely original, but it almost sounds as if the instruments were in another room from the mics when recorded.

It might be easy to say that I should be focused on the music and whatever, and as I mentioned I enjoy it...but when a record company/music store asks me to pay $35 (yes we in NZ pay way too much for our music) I expect a high quality recording. Whilst Drowning Pool (mk II) have stepped up to the mark, I feel they have been let down by those around them.

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..