This came out in 2002 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Meet nü-metal rap-rock no. 14,785: Toronto’s own Headstrong.
Back when they were known as bomb32, this quartet got their big break when they appeared on one of those band-competition TV shows on a U.S. cable network. I presume mind-blowing innovation was not a criterion for entry, since these mooks display not a trace of it. Their songs grind along to the same detuned, chugging guitar riffs and metal-funk drum bashing as every other band on the scene. Likewise, singer Matt Kinna surprises no one by mining his childhood trauma for material like the sports-dad screed Swing Harder, and then delivering nearly all the songs in the same quiet-verse, barking-chorus manner. “It’s not original to be hard,” he informs us in Get In. Indeed not, Matt. But is it that hard to be original?
