Let’s go back to 2001, the Lowlands Festival, early in the morning while most people were still asleep. Another pop metal band from the US was playing on the Dommelsch stage. Me and a couple of friends had just listened to their debut album “Every Six Seconds” and weren’t much impressed, but we wanted to give these guys a try. Well there were like 50 to 100 other people who thought exactly the same, but no one seemed to be much impressed by these overseas newbies. When I received this new album “Back Into Your System” I hoped that this would change the impression I had of Saliva. Sadly enough things haven’t changed since that particular day.

Imagine Josey Scott, the band’s vocalist (you’ll probably know him from his duet with Chad Kroeger for the Spiderman Soundtrack) alternating melodic singing with POD alike raps with a guitarist who loves POD riffs and a couple of other mediocre musicians. The music is supported by terrible lyrics, for example: “Boom, here come the real motherfuckers from the South”, “I’m a superstar baby” etc.

Maybe I’m too pessimistic about these guys, but every single thing I hear on this album has been done before. This is just the perfect example of a band that started making this kind of music because it’s popular right now. Music needs to come from the heart and should be played with passion. The only two songs which reflect this are “Rest In Pieces” and a nice ballad called “Famous Monsters” and two good songs just don’t make a good record.

It’s too bad that these second rated bands get signed to major labels, because there are so many other good bands out there. But on the other hand Saliva does sell a lot of records in the States and Universal has probably earned their money back many times already. And that’s the only thing that counts, but if I were you and I would already have bought this record I would want my money back.