Album Review: Static-X - Wisconsin Death Trip (25th Anniversary Corrosive Edition)
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Formed in Chicago by a meeting of Wayne Static and drummer, Ken Jay – introduced by Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, no less – the pair upped-sticks and headed for California to recruit a second guitarist and bass player. They eventually signed with Warner Bros. in February 1998 and release their debut – and most influential album - just over a year later.
Taking its title from Michael Lesy’s 1973 non-fiction book, Wisconsin Death Trip would define Static-X and become the blueprint for how to do Industrial Nu Metal and it still sounds as vibrant and exciting today as it did on its release.
Kicking off with the trio of promotional singles, Static-X pretty much lay down a marker for who they are and what they were about back in 1999. Push It, I’m With Stupid and Bled for Days still feature heavily in the band’s live set to this day and are all imbued with variations on the Nu Industrial theme. Push It sharp and stabbing and sounds like the end of the last century, with it’s driving, earworm progression; I’m With Stupid crunches with its chunky riffs and pummelling percussion, while the machine-like Bled for Days – used on soundtracks as diverse as Universal Soldier: The Return and Bride of Chucky – feels far more in keeping with a band like Skinny Puppy. That said, Rob Zombie vibes can be heard writ-large throughout this opening section.
Those Zombie sounds begin to dissipate as the album moves on, through the likes of I Am and Fix, which dive heavily into the Nu, the cosmic sounding Otsegolation, on which bassist – and general rhythm-legend – Tony Campos can be heard to weave his magic; the ambient, wistful opening of Love Dump doesn’t last for more than a moment, dropping into some of the record’s most abrasive passages.
More of those ambient moments can be heard in the closing duo of the synth driven The Trance is The Motion and the darkly brooding December. Stem and Sweat of the Bud link, taking the emotionally wrought former into the dancefloor rhythms of the latter.
Sitting close to the conclusion comes the title track itself, which seems to bring everything together into a trippy (no pun intended) groove.
For this twenty-fifth anniversary remaster, the sound has been sharpened and given a razor’s edge (shameless) clarity; the low end is fat and meaty, while the high end is crisp and clear, giving it an antagonistic new sheen without overwhelming the Nu metal aspects.
Ten additional tracks are included with this release, starting with the Japanese Edition bonus track, and Push It b-side, Down, which comes over as closer to Coal Chamber’s eccentric output than Static-X’s usual work, it’s metal shredding guitar meets drum-and-bass.
Head, and its alternate take, Head Titan AE, brim with electronic aggression and Ministry-style vibes; S.O.M. and So Real originally featured on the 2000 promo CD, The Death Trip Continues, not available in stores, but would appear in 2004 on the band’s odds-and-ends collection Beneath… Between… Beyond… So Real, Down, Head and S.O.M. (anacronym of Symptoms of Mercy) were four of many songs written but omitted from the original release of the debut, with S.O.M. being a particular favourite of both Tony Campos and Wayne Static due to its Crowbar-inspired riffing. Alternately, So Real takes things in a more industrial direction, showing the range of ideas the band were working with back in 1998.
The final five tracks on this collection are alternate versions of the album’s I Am, Wisconsin Death Trip and December. Billed as Unedited versions, the most significant and noticeable extension comes
in the latter’s increased running time, reaching almost fifteen minutes. There’s a demo version of Love Dump, showing it in an early form and the radio edit of second single, I’m With Stupid.
Due for release mid-December, this Corrosive Edition is presented on 2 coloured vinyls, boxed and including never before seen artwork; a deluxe CD will be available sometime in the early part of 2026.
In the decade following Wisconsin Death Trip’s release, Static-X would issue a further five albums, but they were never quite able to capture the lightning in the bottle in the same manner. Main man Wayne Static would pass away in 2014, just shy of his forty-nineth birthday, after consuming prescription drugs and alcohol.
In 2018 the remaining three members of the band would reunite, recruit former Dope singer, Edsel Dope, who would adopt the masked persona of Xer0, and Static-X would be reborn, along with the two-part albums: Project: Regeneration volumes 1 and 2 in 2020 and 2024 respectively.
For those of us who were at Bloodstock Open Air in the summer and wandered into the S.O.P.H.I.E. tent after Machine Head’s bill-topping slot on Saturday, you would have been witness to that resurrection, where all bar December and Stem made it to the stage from the debut.
One of the genre’s foundational albums, Wisconsin Death Trip never seemed to get old, and this new remaster doesn’t so much give it cosmetic surgery as a little spruce up here and there, making it shiny and new all over again.
