By Nolan Lewis
In early September of 2002, Candiria was involved in a car accident while on tour, leaving the band with serious and critical injuries. Having survived the accident, the Brooklyn band is “reborn” to releases their fifth album, What Doesn’t Kill You… The end result sounds like the love child of Fred Durst, Zach DeLaRocha and that whinny pussy from Dashboard Confessionals.
Candiria can’t decide whether they are hardcore headbangers, whinny emo punk rockers or gangsta rappers. Most of the songs are simplistic and repetitive hardcore-inspired songs blending into one another. No song stands out, they’re the reverberation of the identical drivel. The exception being “9mm Solution”, a song straight from “tha streetz”, ya’ know wa’ I mean dawg? With lines like, “you try to out flossin’/you lay in a coffin” and “don’t be mad because I use to get more head than your neck” accompanied by a Sean Paul-esque rambling chorus, clearly exemplifies the identity crisis experienced by Candiria.
What Doesn’t Kill You… is the self-proclaimed “rebirth” of Candiria, but it’s more of a mutated and bastardized medley of punk, metal and rap. Apparently what doesn’t kill you, confuses the hell out of you. Too bad it also makes you sound remarkably bland.