The New Monster

The New Monster is the second studio album and major label debut by American rock band Kreachr. Released in July 6, 2000 under MCA Records. It is Kreachr’s most comercially successful album, having sold over 4 million copies worldwide. It spawned four singles, three of which charted high on the Billboard Hot 100, Mainstream Rock and Modern Rock charts. It was certified 4 times platinum by the RIAA. Most of the songs on The New Monster were re-recorded from their independently-released self-titled debut album (1998), along with four new songs written and recorded solely for the album: "Of Love and Nightmares", "Felony/Misdemeanor", "Sunday School" and "Nina".

Lyrical and Musical Themes
The New Monster is a hallmark of Kreachr’s nu metal sound. Critics have compared the album’s sound to that of their contemporaries, Korn, Deftones, Limp Bizkit, Disturbed, Slipknot and Papa Roach. The album’s songs perfectly highlight AJ Reeves’ balance between clean vocals, rapping, and screaming, Criss Garcia’s backing vocals and murky drop-D guitar riffs, Hiro Tanaka’s funky slap bass, and Ben Rizzo's frenzied drum beats.

The song “Along Came a Spider” features lines from the classic nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet, interpreting the lyrics as that of a stalking incident, and keeping in line with the song’s theme. Another song in the album, "Of Love and Nightmares" was partly inspired by the torture and murder of Junko Furuta, which the band had heard of from an online blog (which has since been lost). As of this writing, the album’s title track “The New Monster” is the only song by Kreachr to feature sampling.

Lyrically, the album deal with topics such as domestic and child abuse (“Trouble”, “Felony/Misdemeanor”), drug addiction (“Mphthmn"), depression and bipolar disease (“My Sickness”), suicide (".44", "Nina"), betrayal (“Blindsided”), bullying ("Playground"), manipulative relationships ("Bitter"), stalking ("Along Came a Spider") and torture ("Of Love and Nightmares"). Certain songs feature lyrics that criticize society (“Human Beings”) and organized religion (“Darker Shade of Black”, “Sunday School”). The final track of the album, "Nina", was a song dedicated to guitarist Criss Garcia's childhood friend Nina (full name undisclosed), who committed suicide months before the album's release, following a long bout with depression.

The album features a hidden track that plays after 13 minutes of silence following the last track "Nina". The track, titled "F.U.", is a chaotic mishmash consisting of weirdly distorted guitar riffs, indiscriminate drumming, and vocalist AJ Reeves flip-flopping in between violently hissing and screaming the words "fuck you". According to AJ, "F.U." was ad-libbed by the band on the spot, who were scrambling to add a filler track to the album. The clean version of the album omits this track altogether.

The international version of the album features two bonus tracks: "Trust" a B-side originally released as part of the Trouble single release, and a cover of the Suzanne Vega song "Luka".

Cover
The album’s cover features a zoom-in on a woman’s face, with a large tarantula crawing from her neck up. The image is color-inverted to make the picture look more surreal. Alternate views of the woman with more spiders can be seen on the back cover, as well as inside the CD’s jewel case and lyric booklet.

The tarantula in the front cover of the album was Criss' pet tarantula Rita, who is considered by many to be the band's mascot, and the inspiration for the band's spider motif. In the alternate shots found in other parts of the album cover, other, similar tarantulas were used. The model used in the cover, however, has chosen to remain anonymous and her identity is still largely unknown.

Track Listing
¹ Only available in the album's uncensored version.
 * 1) The New Monster
 * 2) My Sickness
 * 3) Bitter
 * 4) Trouble
 * 5) Human Beings
 * 6) Darker Shade of Black
 * 7) Along Came a Spider
 * 8) Felony/Misdemeanor
 * 9) Playground
 * 10) Of Love & Nightmares
 * 11) Sunday School
 * 12) Blindsided
 * 13) Mphtmn
 * .44
 * 1) Nina (hidden track "F.U." starts after 13 minutes of silence¹)

International Version Bonus Tracks

 * 1) Trust
 * 2) Luka (Suzanne Vega cover)

Singles
Released: June 2, 2000
 * Trouble


 * Of Love & Nightmares

Released: September 15, 2000


 * Along Came a Spider

Released: November 22, 2000


 * My Sickness

Released: January 19, 2001

Promotional Singles

 * Mphtmn
 * Felony/Misdemeanor

Kreachr

 * AJ Reeves - lead vocals, rhythm guitar, occasional lead guitar
 * Criss Garcia - lead guitar, backing vocals
 * Hiro Tanaka - bass guitar
 * Ben Rizzo - drums

Additional Credits

 * GGGarth - producer
 * AJ Reeves, Kreachr - writer