Ice's third studio album, "Hard to Swallow", featured a darker sound and lyrics than Ice's previous work, as well as various mixtures of different styles of hip hop and hard rock, which garnered media attention. Ice attracted a whole new audience when he started touring again, some who were even unfamiliar with his more mainstream sound. Reviews were generally negative; Jon Pareles of "The New York Times" wrote, "The most earnest new song, "Scars", condemns an abusive father. The sentiments would sound more genuine if Korn hadn't gotten there first." Richard Torres of "Rolling Stone" gave the album two out of five stars, writing that while "nothing, however, can redeem Ice's wack boasting," the album "isn't half-bad." In "The New Rolling Stone Album Guide", Rob Kemp gave the album three out of five stars, writing that it contained Ice's "most convincing music". In promotion of "Hard to Swallow", Ice toured with a seven-piece live band which included future Weezer bassist Scott Shriner. The band opened with rock-oriented material from "Hard to Swallow" and concluded with older hip hop songs. The setlist also included "Power", based upon Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song". Ice said that writing the songs and performing them were like therapy, as he had tried to hide his anger when making his older songs but Robinson was the first producer who told him to use it to create.