Life on Display

1	Away from Me 3:59
2	Heel Over Head 4:05
3	Nothing Left to Lose 4:30
4	Change My Mind 4:20
5	Spin You Around 4:27
6	Already Gone 4:32
7	Think 4:10
8	Cloud 9 3:34
9	Bottom 5:22
10	Freak of the World 3:36
11	Sydney 4:57
12	Time Flies 7:05

Barnes & Noble

Second albums tend to be tough on bands who've had out-of-the-box success, but Puddle of Mudd strike a pretty good balance between reprising the energy of Come Clean and moving into new territory on this sophomore outing. Basically, Life on Display retains Wes Scantlin's seemingly endless stream of angst -- which flows biliously through "Away from Me" and "Freak of the World" -- while taking the shackles off guitarist Paul Phillips. He takes advantage of that freedom by augmenting his usual stomping style with some new tricks -- like the wah-wah tone that permeates "Nothing Left to Lose." "Already Gone," on the other hand, gives the rhythm section room to move, particularly bassist Doug Ardito, who takes full rein on the song's intro. At times, the disc lapses into a murky monochrome that threatens to overwhelm, but there are just enough bits of color -- like the acoustic, neo–Alice in Chains "Change My Mind" -- to keep things interesting. David Sprague

All Music Guide

Puddle of Mudd were one of the many neo-grunge bands that cluttered the American rock landscape in 2001/2002, ten years after Nirvana brought the sound crashing into the mainstream with Nevermind. Nirvana and many of their grunge peers flamed out rather quickly, because they were an underground phenomenon uncomfortable in the mainstream, where there were fans that liked the sound of the bands, not the sentiments. Which means that there was an audience for bands that replicated the heavy feel, including some vague angst-ridden sentiment, but left behind the unpredictability, weirdness, and art of the first wave of grunge bands. Several post-grunge bands came close in the immediate aftermath of grunge, but nobody perfected it until Puddle of Mudd and their ilk came along ten years later. Puddle of Mudd were fortunate enough to work with Andy Wallace, the man who mixed Nevermind, and on both their 2001 debut, Come Clean, and its 2003 sequel, Life on Display, he manages to recreate elements of Nirvana's sound, but only if they were a plodding heavy metal band instead of a noisy, art-punk outfit. Which means they can occasionally sound like Alice in Chains, but where that band had deep metal roots, Puddle of Mudd's vocabulary begins and ends with grunge. What makes them different is that they're grunge for frat boys. Stephen Thomas Erlewine