PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
@planetmosh reviews Threat to Survival by .@Shinedown on .@AtlanticRecords
September 18th sees the worldwide release of the new album from Shinedown, Threat to Survival. First single Cut the Cord has received major airplay on rock radio stations everywhere and the band will join Halestorm and Black Stone Cherry on the Carnival of Madness tour in the UK in January and February next year.
It’s been a pretty long wait for the follow up to 2012’s Amaryllis but at last the new album is about to arrive. First single Cut the Cord is perhaps somewhat misleading as a first release from the album, as it leads you to believe that the band have spent the intervening three years developing a whole new sound, but it’s actually the only song on the album that sounds that way. It’s harder, Brent Smith’s vocal is almost unrecognisable in it’s aggression and tone and even the kids chorus singing “lalalala” doesn’t take away from the fact it’s probably their hardest track since Devour. As brilliant as it is, and a bit more of it on the album would have been exciting, the rest of the album is far more recognisable as Shinedown.
The album opens with Asking for it, a track that is classic Shinedown. Smith’s voice is really distinctive and that voice along with a catchy, singalong chorus shouts from the rooftops that this is a Shinedown album. Then it goes straight into Cut the Cord, which flips everything upside down. It is, in my opinion, the most original, different and exciting track they’ve ever produced. It contains the lyric, “it’s time to get real and inspired,” and this is certainly the most real, most inspired track I’ve heard from them. The problem with that is that the rest of the album doesn’t hit me as hard. That’s in no way saying the album is bad, it’s just that it suffers in comparison. That said there are some excellent tracks, for example second single Outcast, a slow, almost funk groove that builds into something quite heavy. It All Adds Up is a stadium pleasing song that will sound amazing live when they play the UK in a few months, as is Oblivion. Shinedown have always been a rock and roll band not afraid to tackle a ballad, Second Chance being the most well known and successful of those so far. Threat to Survival doesn’t feature anything quite so balladic but Thick as Thieves isn’t far off it, with a much softer, slower sound, guitars giving way to piano and a lighters in the air chorus.
In all, Threat to Survival is a very good album, featuring one brilliant stand out track. I may well have given it five stars if it wasn’t for the fact I wish more of the album had sounded like Cut the Cord.
Track Listing:
Asking for It
Cut the Cord
State of my Head
Outcast
How did you Love?
It all adds up
Oblivion
Dangerous
Thick as Thieves
Black Cadillac
Misfits
Links:
- 10.99
