Review Summary: A great debut album from the Mississippi quartet, 3 Doors Down.
The year is 2000, and the Mississippi quartet 3 Doors Down have just released their debut album, The Better Life. The Better Life would prove themselves among the best in the genre with eleven tracks loaded with hooks for mainstream appeal, but with an energy and drive that keeps them from sounding like mere imitators.
The first single, “Kryptonite,” climbed the rock radio charts when the album was released, and is a great construction of clean guitar arpeggios over a nice swing-time drum line, bursting into a hard-hitting chorus where distorted guitars deftly snatch the focus from the rhythm section.
“Loser,” the album’s next single, is dark, brooding, and is slow in the spirit of Creed’s “My Own Prison,” with the exception of a bridge that unexpectedly switches into double time with the introduction of a crunching guitar.
The band’s melodies will pull you into the music, and the harmonies are well-executed without sounding cheesy, and the song structures, as above, are often brilliant.
“Be Like That,” the albums power ballad, is a great song, but it detracts from the momentum of the album slightly.
“Down Poison” is a little overdramatic and evokes comparison to Matchbox 20’s “Busted” , while the fast-paced title track uses key changes and a speedy guitar riff to create a nice frantic atmosphere, a mood also captured in the song “Smack.”
The album closes with “So I Need You.” At just under four minutes in length , the song is hardly an epic, but somehow it creates a great feeling of resolution in its simplicity, making it the perfect closer for the album.
There are not very many bad points about this album, except maybe that some of the songs sound very similar, to the point where I had to listen to the album several times before I could remember which verses went with which choruses. The choruses themselves are all well-written, however. 3 Doors Down aren’t an innovative, cutting edge group, but they know how to rock. The band has the infectious hooks necessary to pick up an audience, but plenty of bands have that. 3 Doors Down has an album full of good music to back it up, The Better Life is a recommended buy.
