Ok guys, we've been with you.

We were with you when you first emerged with Opiate, a callow but still potent debut any musician would be proud of; an album of such hot nascency that those who had the great pleasure of discovering it watched and waited restlessly for you to grow. Then you released Undertow which, frankly, still trumps 99% of the nu-metal/rap-rock even if being viewed, retrospectively at least, as being a bit brusque and coarse. Then you released Aenima, your magnum opus. There you were, emerged successfully from the thin cocoon of modern Metal, flying off into a great artistic horizon thought impalpable by most members of the movement at that time. Your fans were agape and followed with zeal that more than a few deities would envy.

But at the same time it seems as if you've all had a pretty good idea of your destination in the public eye. Ab ovo you've all carried an air of dispassion for public consumption, preferring instead for the music to be solely representative of the group. Yet when Paul d'Amour left after Undertow your dispassion turned into glib celebrity. It seemed as though you bathed in public reverence then just left them standing in the tub, seemingly unappreciative of the great warmth your adoring public gave you. But we ignored the interviews. After all, we said, we'd be just as intolerant of a media that constantly wanted to package musicians into simpler, plastic, and more palatable shapes.

After a 5-year hiatus, a successful side project with Billy Howerdel, and a dispute with Volcanic came and went, you released Lateralus. The album was replete with wishy-washy spiritual matter and, because the mainstream Metal field become even more contracted and more glossier, you were the titular Kings of Progressive Metal; the only son who remained faithful to their fathers in King Crimson and Pink Floyd. And, again, a rise in egos could be seen. Your music was touted as revolutionary. Spectacular. Incredible! Majestic! THE BEST METAL ALBUM TO COME OUT IN YEARS! And hey, it was good, but it wasn't mana dropped onto mere mortals from the Metal Pantheon (that would be Led Zeppelin's IV).

So what's my point? My point is that Lateralus affirms my greatest fear: you truly think that, in the end, your music is something transcendent. See, whether it was Prison Sex, Harry Manback, or The Grudge the presiding belief was that your shit was tighter, smarter, and just better. Am I disputing that? Yeah. Hey, you make fine Metal music but try to exercise some humility. Your pattern from the beginning has been to rest on your laurels before you even won any and, hey, it's your fame and you can do as you wish. But rest assured one of these days you're going to ask for a celebrity advance and you can bet your ass that the record you drop will be insufficient to recover the losses.

So stop with the astrological nonsense found on your latest work and, no, I'm not impressed by the fact that Carey's drum set is called "The Octopus." Hell, Faith No More were just as good as you and they never haughtily advertised their superlative musical intuition, they never rested on their laurels. The same goes for Dillinger Escape Plan who, though still young as a band, could quite possibly kick the shit out of an aging, desultory cadre of Metal musicians. Other musicians such as The Deftones, System of a Down, and the newly reborn Apex Theory are also harbingers of a rarefied Metal edge. We're still with you, but the question is whether or not you are with us.