Album: "Mud Children" (1998)
Label: Retail Radio
Style: Electro Rock
Songs: 10

Reviewed by: Darklight

The ReHab Club is the solo project of Joe Williams. He mixes a lot of variety from one song to the next on this album making everything sound diverse. For the most part he creates heavy rock music with industrial touches such as electronics, drum programming and synths.

The album starts off with "Bullet Envy" which has a slight Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson vibe to it. Scratchy electronic sounds combined with heavy guitar and aggressive distorted vocals. It's a little short and repetitive, but still has a catchy enough chorus where you can't help but sing along to it. Song two "Hurt Yourself" is more polished and mature in its construction. It starts off with piano and then guitars and drums come into play. The vocals are really good here as Joe blurts out words as well as sings with melody for the chorus. The guitar work here is also very impressive. This is overall a very catchy track that hooks you for its entire ride.

Song three "Make Believe" also includes a very mature and polished sound to it. Great guitar work combined with programmed drums and layered electronic effects. Joe sings along perfectly with a superb blend of harmony to his voice. Song four "Broken Lies" is a slower track with mainly piano used to make the music while Joe sings along with passion. It's rather dark, cold and emotional.

Song five "Night Child" is easily the best track on this album. The instant the electronic beats are heard you know that you're in for a treat with this one. This song would get the dance floor packed in the clubs with its energetic pace. The electronics are very dominant here with the guitars hidden in the background. While it's aggressive, it still includes a lot of melody. Joe sings with a variety of emotions just making this song that much better.Song six "The Label" is a little out of place on the album as the music is rather funky and Joe sings in a high pitched tone that I personally find to be annoying. I don't care for this track at all and just skip past it.

Song seven "Inside" slows things down again with beautifully orchestrated piano and synth melodies combined with Joe singing in a softer more relaxed tone. It's a very quality track that really shows off Joe's musical abilities. Song eight "Heaven Above You" has a slight goth rock feel to it with Joe coming off sounding a bit like Marilyn Manson. It's a very good medium paced rock song with great melody throughout its playing course.

Song nine "Too Many Romantics" is an ambient experimental track with various electronic sound effects mixed with drum programming, soothing synths and voice samples. It's well done, but I feel that it would have been better placed as the ending track. Song ten "Cast Off Your Spell" is a very heavy and aggressive industrial rock song that sounds like something Rob Zombie would come up with. Guitars and drums take center stage here while Joe sings roughly with distortion. The chorus brings in melody to make things more interesting. It's another great song that really shows off the diversity of this album.

While I find this album to include a lot of great material, there are still some rough spots that prevent it from having a smooth flow from start to finish. This is in part due to the tracks not seeming to be added in an order that works quite right. But there are also a few songs here that could have been left off the album and wouldn't have been missed. The bottom line is that this album delivers a lot of great material that no fan of guitar industrial crossover music should miss out on.