Review Summary: At some point every band's career they reach their pinnacle, then slowly decline. While One-X is an honorable album, it's not one of the best efforts of the 21st century.
From Hybrid Theory to Sufferer and The Witness to American Idiot. Every band has it's strong point, but always has a slow decline. Artists are slowly giving the main-stream more of what they want for personal gain. Well here is Three Days Grace in 2013....at their decline ironically. Recently Adam Gontier left Three Days Grace, from here you know what happens. The rest of the band acts dedicated to their fan base saying they will go on with the show regardless. Well here's a blast to the past when Three Days Grace had potential and were at the pinnacle of their career.
One-X had just been released, all the 14 year old kids were screaming for the next radio-rock hit. While One-X is exactly that, it has a solid grunge/rock sound almost all the way through it's length. Solid is the word, not incredible. I'm not going to sit here and rave about an album that doesn't deserve it. One-X has intense meaning behind many of the songs, but is over-all executed poorly. "Let It Die" is the best example of failure on the album. Adam moans about letting go of a relationship which is backed up by cringe-worthy lyrics. "I swear I never meant to let it die. I just don't care about you anymore. It's not fair when you said that I didn't try. I just don't care about you anymore". However songs like "Animal I Have Become" have an atmosphere bands don't capture very well anymore. The song has the most present bass line on the album, and has a sense of desperation as Adam stresses the fear of addiction.
Well what I'm going to focus on here is the vocals and lyrical quality. First of all, Adam's vocals are the best string of the album, if not of the band. Adam's aggression is nearly impeccable in songs like "Pain", "Animal I Have Become", "Riot". At the same time he has a soft side to his voice, that works splendidly in the bands popular ballad "Never Too Late". Not so much in "Let It Die". The lyrics range from awful to decent. The song that is best lyrically and possibly best on the album overall is "Get Out Alive". The atmosphere of the song is more powerful than any other song the band has done. The chorus is fairly simple but expresses the meaning of the song well. The song can be interpreted in several themes, but most often is thought to be about trying to fight drug addiction. As this song and many other songs do on the album that other TDG albums simply don't do is create songs that are open for interpretation and require farther thought process. The casual Three Days Grace song is stupidly straight-forward, at which a young child could figure out.
Here is the part many people may call "The Bash-fest"..... The instrumental quality is quite medio-core to put it at it's best. Nothing wrong with it, but not enough shines. Brad Walst's bass lines are far from comprehensible, and guitar riffs usually consist of three or four power chords , while drums are just basic. There production suffers. For an album to be good as a whole, all sound needs to be equal, unless the song is entirely focused on one instrument for a solo. Saying the word solo and Three Days Grace is like an oxi-moron. It doesn't happen, thus another problem of the album. The closest thing to a solo on the album is guitarist Barry's short interlude on "It's All Over".
To express the album's lyrics as a whole: a mixed bag. You have your gems like "Never Too Late", and "Animal I Have Become". Then you have the *** like "Let It Die", and "Time Of Dying". One-X isn't by any means over-looked or underrated. While the album is only slightly better than average, it is easily the best out of the four albums the band has released.
By now I know there is a thirteen year old shouting at the top of his lungs "WTF THIS ALBUM RULES". First of all you probably didn't read the whole review. Maybe you will like me a little more for contributing to your laziness, by giving you a track by track.
It's All Over- 2.5/5
Pain- 3/5
Animal I Have Become- 4/5
Never Too Late- 4/5
On My Own- 2/5
Riot- 3.5/5
Get Out Alive- 4.5/5
Let It Die- 1/5
Over and Over- 1.5/5
Time Of Dying- 2.5/5
Gone Forever- 3/5
One X- 3.5/5
Average: 2.92
Final Score: 3
