Limp Bizkit released Still Sucks on October 31, 2021, through Suretone Records. Their sixth studio album ended the wait for a follow-up to 2011’s Gold Cobra with 12 songs running roughly 32 minutes. “Out of Style” opened the record with Wes Borland bending his guitar riff around the beat, putting one of the band’s most distinctive players straight to work.
Borland’s approach to those pitch shifts came from learning to make a guitar do more when he couldn’t afford effects pedals. In a March 2023 interview with Guitar World, he explained how he used the whammy bar almost like a trombone, moving notes toward a snare hit or down toward a kick. Even the bar’s position mattered. He wanted its angle and resistance set precisely enough to control those movements.
Getting the album finished had required repeated attempts. Speaking on Drinks With Johnny in June 2021, in comments transcribed by Blabbermouth, Borland estimated that the band had made seven visits to different studios over the previous decade. They had accumulated roughly 35 instrumental recordings, while Fred Durst had recorded and discarded vocals as he reconsidered the material. Borland described a difference in their working habits: he was comfortable releasing music and accepting mistakes, while Durst needed to feel satisfied before letting it go. The project had spent years associated with the working title Stampede of the Disco Elephants.
After the release, Borland offered PRS a less complicated explanation for why it had finally come together. They had found “the right environment, mentally and personally, to bring it all together.” The breakthrough, in his telling, involved the people making the record as much as the songs.
By then, the public introduction had already taken a distinctly Bizkit turn. “Dad Vibes” played over the PA at the end of their July 2021 Lollapalooza set, where Durst sported a mustache and a suburban dad makeover. The album announcement followed just two days before release. Its rollout included a deliberately ridiculous preview from a mulleted reviewer called Jake Bacon, who presented snippets of the songs while drinking beer.
The artwork carried the same willingness to make themselves the joke. Once they had settled on the title, Durst and Borland developed the cover over a weekend, Borland told PRS. It pictured cartoon versions of the musicians sitting on a floor while a woman approached them with a vacuum cleaner.
There was room for a different kind of guitar experiment inside the record, too. On the INXS cover “Don’t Change,” Borland used his updated PRS four-string guitar and bass hybrid for an EBow melody in the bridge. He said the instrument made it onto the album at the last minute. Its contribution was a melodic part, leaving the expanded whammy-bar capabilities he was excited about for other recordings.
“Out of Style” received its official music video on February 8, 2023. Directed by Durst and Marc Klasfeld, it used deepfake faces to turn the band into world leaders playing together in a garage, with a simulated Tom Cruise handling the barbecue. The album’s opening song had gained a visual gag as elaborate as the cartoon scene on its cover.
