Review Summary: A solid performance, especially from a band who's been a punching bag for many years.
3 Doors Down has returned to the studio for the first time in five years. However, when I heard this album was official, I didn't know what to think. For a band like 3 Doors Down, I wasn't expecting platinum material, but I was expecting, after their last three albums turning out to be such massive failures, that they could get back on the path they were on back in 1999.
They did.
This album isn't perfect by any means, and nobody will ever consider this their best album, but this definently had to be released to boost the status of 3 Doors Down, whether it was high or not.
We open with The Broken, a song about standing up to "take back your world today". Mushy? Yes, but I'm one if those people who've been considered trash for many years, which is why I take this seriously. I know, not everyone goes through it, but it delievers, whether you've been bullied and thrown around or not. We're then led into the hit single, In The Dark. It is pretty cock rock, but I've been waiting for a catchy song like this for a while now, and this song defines it. Not only are the first two songs improvements of the past, the whole first half shows us a new 3 Doors Down. Of the first six tracks, the spotlight shines brightest on Believe, another song about how we can change and dream, and how we'll be who we want. The way they deliever this, both musically and lyrically is incredible.
But the down side to all this is, once again, that post grunge sound that made them famous, is once again absent. It just got more mainstream than the last album. That set aside, the entire first half led me to believe this would go down as their best. But what happens next? The second half fails just as much as the first half succeeded.
I Don't Wanna Know is pretty much a country song, and the remaining four songs are very tedious and boring. The lyrics are very dull and uninspired, which is why this album as a whole couldn't get any higher than a 3.0. But of all the songs in the entire second half, Love Is A Lie would have to be the best, but just because it's better than the other five, that doesn't mean it's any good. But it does mean they actually tried to deliver a good song, both musically and lyrically.
Not a perfect record, but this was improvement.
Recomended Tracks:
In The Dark
Still Alive
Believe
Inside Of Me
