"These guys were WAY better when they lived in Arizona and had Justin as a guitarist and their original bassist. Back when they performed constantly with local bands like Blessed Be Thy Name and had block parties, songs like NeckTies reflected a progression in rock. I am sad to say this album is even worse than their last effort, The Spore. The entire album sounds generic and has absolutely no substance both musically or lyrically. It's border line cheesy!"
Great 'major' label debut
M. Champlin | Colroado Springs, Colorado | 07/09/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Now i know that Century Media Records isn't a major record label, but compaired to the company that released the excellent debut 'The Spore' OFTM is now starting to catch on. With Manifesto, OFTM continues with the same style of their past album and ep, and if you are a fan of any earlier material, you wont be disapointed.
1. 21st Century Time Bomb-great opener with a aggresive beat and catchy chorus (5/5)
2. Lie- good fast paced song (4.75/5)
3. Burn You Down- the first single from the album, one of the best songs on the album (5+/5)
4. Dead Underground- My personal favorite. A modern industrial Depeche Mode feel to it, with a metal flavor. (6/5)
5. The Habit- Decent track, a slower tempo bongs it down a little bit (3.5/5)
6. Hold On- Another decent heavy track, good but not teh best on the album (4/5)
7. Wandering Star- A portishead cover, this song is very well done (5/5)
8. Black Book- A strong track with a heavy feel to it (4.5/5)
9. Washed Away- Average track, my personal worst on the album- (3/5)
10. Naked- Decent, but like the habit a little slow at times (4/5)
11. Manifesto- a strong way to close the album, wraps up the album in a great way (4.75/5)
Overall about a 4.5/5
Good follow up to the amazing debut, but album length was too short (11 songs) and a few songs were missing some of the usual OFTM flare."
The Bon Jovi of industrial rock has arrived!
CRAZOTOLOGY | Joplin, MO. (USA) | 09/07/2008
(1 out of 5 stars)
"The music is just kinda "ok" I suppose but the vocalist (Ron Underwood) is totally lame. He sounds like he's singing for a hair band or something. Seriously, this is one of the most pretentious, meaningless efforts I have ever heard. The only good song on this entire worthless record is the cover song "Wandering Star"...and of course Portishead wrote that song not OFM. Sorry folks, but Opiates For The Masses won't be reaching any masses after all....it's that bad. Not even the masses would like this."
Disappointing
M. C. Loughmiller | New Bern, NC | 03/25/2009
(2 out of 5 stars)
"As a used-to-be-huge-fan, this album was a serious letdown for me. With only two exceptions, this album is both stylistically and thematically "ho-hum, heard it before" at best. Don't take that to mean that this album shares the same sound that's gotten the band this far (if you can even say they had "a" sound) - I mean that this album sounds like a dozen other angry-teen-style metal bands on the radio.
Fans of the original OFTM sound, fans of intelligent lyrics, and anyone sick of "oh-poor-me-my-life-sucks" angst-rock: grab the few individual MP3s that are worth it, and steer clear of the rest of this trainwreck.