This band remains a bit mysterious to me. For those of you who haven't heard (or maybe don't remember) ... Integ2000 was a short-lived endeavor fronted by Dwid of Integrity around the dawn of the millennium. With the Melnicks deciding to start In Cold Blood, Dwid was left without a backing band and decided, in turn, to experiment with a bit of a new sound.
The first offering from the band, if memory serves me correct, is the self-titled full length. Released by Victory Records, this album is honestly one of the most aggro full lengths I've ever heard; a surprising offering from a band typically known for it's brooding, strangely melodic music. The album has more than a few guest vocal spots by Jayson Popson of, at the time, Mushroomhead fame. Speaking of which, Integ2000 featured the guitar work from two of the original members of Mushroomhead; I digress. This record may as well have listed Popson as a second vocalist. This is far from a complaint as the album features perhaps one of the most grueling, unspoken vocal competitions of all time as both vocalists offer up some of their finest work for this album. This session is extremely down-tuned as was most "nu-metal" of it's day (1998). I'm not sure if I can properly express how marine this shit is. No kidding ... this is one of the few albums that gets played in its entirety during one of my workout sessions. It's a shame that Victory didn't know how to push an album like this at the time as it surely could've went toe-to-toe with any other metal album that was going platinum at the time.
Next up for Integ2000 was the split with Fear Tomorrow on East Coast Empire. While only featuring two songs, this split contains, what I would assume would be, the closest-to-realized sound that the band was trying to capture. I mean, I wasn't there when the band got together or inside anyone's head or anything ... but the tracks sound what the name infers: an updated version of Integrity. The first song actually features a few riffs you may have heard before in songs such as Systems Overload whereas the second song has a vibe closer to that of the debut full length. Whether or not this was an intentional move, it definitely walks the line of the older Integrity material and the "modern" sound of the time of it's recording.
The final offering from this outfit was a 10-track record which would also be released on East Coast Empire. While only featuring 4 original tracks, the album features 6 very interesting cover songs which include Hot Stuff, Dancing With Myself, Bad Girls, Cars and South Of Heaven. I can't speak too highly of this album outside of it's comedic value. The original songs on this album don't really peak as high as the "earlier" Integ2000 but still have their moments. I'm not too sure what the explanation was for the significant drop-off between albums, but I'd love to hear it if anyone knows it.
The "band" would dissolve not-long after the release of this final album. Next up for Dwid would be his Angela Delamorte project, which would eventually be released as the Closure album under the Integrity moniker. I'll probably post this up in the near future as well.
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