Three Days Grace- Life Starts Now Review

An article by Brad    No Comments

I always get excited the week before a new CD comes about, especially when I’ve ben waiting over 2 years for a new album.  Many times, I am rewarded for my patience with an awesome album.  The new Chevelle Album, Sci-Fi Crimes, is an excellent example, and you can check out my review of it here.  From beginning to end, I was blown away.

Unfortunately, when I popped in Life Starts Here, I wasn’t afforded the same experience.

I Love Three Days Grace.  I bought the DVD the day it was released.  I have seen them in concert.  And they rock.

All Three Days Grace fans have waiting for the follow-up album to One-X for over 3 years, and unfortunately what we received didn’t meet my lofty expectations. 

There isn’t single bad song between their first two albums, each composed mostly of excellent, powerful songs with an occasional “only good” song sprinkled in.  I can listen to both the self-titled album and One-X from beginning to end and find myself singing along the entire time.  This album may be more evolved, but evolution is not always good.  I am reminded of Minutes to Midnight by Linkin Park where more than half the songs are god awful.  Now, I am not insinuating that any of these songs are horrible.  For the most part, they are passable, but in many cases they are saved only by the fact that Adam Gontier has such an amazing, dynamic voice, and sometimes I will drown out the music itself and simply enjoy Gontier’s vocals.

Are there any good songs?  The first single, Break, will grow on you, as will several others after several listen-throughs.  The best song on the album is by far Track 7 Last to Know.  But overall, there seems to be something missing, something that i just can’t put my finger on.  Unfortunately, there is no Just Like You or I Hate Everything or Home.  There is no Animal I Have Become or Pain or Riot.  There is no song you fall in love with immediately, and its upsetting.

Maybe I set my sights to high.  Maybe I am being unfair.  Maybe I haven’t listened to the album enough to appreciate all of the nuances.  And maybe I am right.  Three Days Grace followed up their first album so perfectly with One-X that I thought they could never falter

And I’ll be honest… I Don’t Care, the song Gontier provides vocals for for Apacolyptica’s “World’s Collide” was freaking awesome.  Just perfect.  It was more Three Days Grace than any of the songs on their new album.  And maybe hearing that song raised my expectations too high.

All of that said, I still have Life Starts Here in my CD changer in my car.  And I listen to it when the sports talk radio goes to one of their insane 5 minute commercial breaks.  I listen to a lot, trying to like it, but too often I find myself goign directly to a handful of songs. 

I never had to do that with the two previous albums because they were great from first note, from first lyric, to the last.

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