Pretend I'm Human
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| Pretend I'm Human | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | July 13, 1999 | |||
| Recorded | March–April 1999 | |||
| Studio | Mad Dog (Burbank, California) | |||
| Length | 42:37 | |||
| Label | Ng | |||
| Producer | Neil Perry | |||
| Orange 9mm chronology | ||||
| ||||
Pretend I'm Human is the third and final album by the American band Orange 9mm, released on July 13, 1999.[1][2] It was a commercial disappointment.[3] Pretend I'm Human was rereleased in 2021.[4]
The band supported it by playing the 1999 Warped Tour; they also toured with Machine Head.[5][6]
Recorded in California, Pretend I'm Human was produced by Neil Perry.[7][8] The band abandoned all of its demoed songs once they were in the studio, opting instead to start over.[9] Vocalist Chaka Malik played bass on the album.[10] The lyrics to many of the songs touch on themes of societal power dynamics and class.[11]
Critical reception
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [12] |
| Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal | 6/10[13] |
| In Music We Trust | B−[14] |
| PopMatters | 8.5/10[15] |
| See Magazine | [16] |
| Winnipeg Sun | [17] |
Exclaim! wrote that "Touching Skies" "may be the best, if not the only, rap-metal power ballad ever."[18] The Telegram & Gazette deemed the album the band's best yet, praising the "rap-inspired grooves, sharper dynamic shifts and overall better chops."[8] The Arizona Daily Star determined that Malik's "words are racy enough to turn a sailor incarnadine, yet his rap is fantastically caustic poetry."[11]
The New York Post noted that Orange 9mm "is still their hard-core selves on this 10-song collection, which taps hip-hop, industrial and good old-fashioned Stairway-to-Hell metal."[19] The Winnipeg Sun concluded that the "NYC trio manages to weld heavy riffs and hip-hop rhythms without getting them all over each other."[17] The San Diego Union-Tribune stated that "the lurching guitars in the Fugazi-like 'Lifeless', the explosive title track and even the slow build-up in 'Touching Skies', a rather preachy song about self-determination, have a raw, punk edge to them that you won't find in other so-called new metal bands."[20]
AllMusic wrote that, "even if Malik has a better lyrical flow than most rap-metal singers, the results tend to sound stiff and forced when there are no funky backing rhythms for him to play off of."[12] In 2021, Decibel called Pretend I'm Human "extraordinarily eclectic," noting that the reissue "brings the guitars to the fore [to] make it a perfect ahead-of-its-time candidate for reevaluation."[21]