Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water 2CD Flip Interscope Records, 490 793-2, 2000, 2CD 15 Track Amazon.co.uk The splicing together of nu-metal, rap, funk and sterile electronica, laced with dark melodies as infectious as anything Britney or Steps have to offer, sold 6 million copies of Limp Bizkit's previous album, Significant Other. It also saw them invade mainstream America and more impressively, their doom-fuelled rework of the Mission Impossible theme, "Take A Look Around", score a number 3 hit this side of the pond. With Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water, they perfect the formula. From the electro of "Intro", through the contagious chug of "My Generation" to the straight-up, non-metal rap of "Getcha Groove On", Chocolate Starfish is a slick, clinical and flawless platform for Fred Durst's effortlessly savage, and occasionally--if unintentionally--comic sociological rants for disaffected youth. Ultimately, though, it's that undeniably intelligent musical backdrop--the brooding guitar sound that gave the Mission Impossible 2 theme haunting new life and menace, and defines "Hot Dog", "Full Nelson", "My Way", "Rollin'", "Boiler" and "It'll Be Okay"--that makes Chocolate Starfish a seething work of genius. Fact is, with rap and rock saying pretty much the same thing, Limp Bizkit are not alone in what they do. They just do it better than everyone else. -- Dan Gennoe