Review Summary: Still somber at times like its predecessor, but the sunlight begins to shine again in this apparent bookend to Daughtry's latest era.
There's nothing like a shock to the system.
Life has a way of storming in and breaking you the f*ck down. That's certainly been my arc the last couple of years. It started with the passing of my grandmother in the waning days of 2023. I'm not going to trauma dump, but she was pretty much my mother, the only maternal figure I've ever had. She was the most important person in my life, my best friend and someone I could rely on to make sure I was okay, up to the very end, even when I took her for granted and didn't deserve it. The last time I spoke to her before she went to the ICU and never came home, she asked if I'd eaten dinner and offered to buy me a tray of pizza. The next morning, my dad had to take her to the hospital. Within two weeks, she was gone. That set me on a course devoid of direction, where I wasn't sufficiently equipped to handle the wave of adversity that was about to come my way. Fast forward to March of 2024, and some of the family and I went out for a morning breakfast. The sun was shining, it was unseasonably warm, and I felt like I was turning a corner. It sucked that my grandma was gone, but I thought I was ready to commence a new chapter.
That's when I got the message that my job was closing our location and laying off those who couldn't, or didn't wish to, relocate. Some of us did, even to completely different states, but I couldn't. Within a month, I was unemployed.
I loved that job. I'd been there for roughly half a decade. The pay and hours were great, the work-leisure balance was just what I needed, I was good at what I did, and I'd even been recently elevated to something of a management position. I didn't have the title or anything, but I'd supervised my department on a number of occasions, and had responsibility for other employees in this limited capacity. With that now gone, I'd lost again, and this time a fair bit to quantify; the obvious (my source of income), but also familiarity. I lost friends, some of whom I've not seen or heard from since our homestead shuttered. It was also around this time that the stray cat I'd been feeding (couldn't take in because we're all allergic) gave birth then went missing. The sound and sight of her newborn kitten (who I did eventually take in because I couldn't resist) crying out for her in vain is forever burned into my memory. With the loss of my gram still so fresh in my mind, I broke down on my porch and cried uncontrollably for the first time in my life. I vowed to the little fluff ball that I would love and protect him, and I vowed to myself that I could not,
would not sink this low again.
Chris Daughtry's struggles in recent years mirror mine in some ways. After the release of his band's album
Dearly Beloved in 2021, which marked the band's return to its post-grunge roots, he suffered two heartbreaking losses in the span of just a week; first his mother, then his daughter Hannah, the latter to suicide. Daughtry has been very forthright with how both deaths, and Hannah's especially, changed him. As his band's recent music has born out, his feelings are defined primarily by guilt, feeling like he could've, should've, done something to convince her to hold on. He decided his next album, which would center around this emotional journey, would be split into two extended plays.
Shock To The System (Part One) arrived in September 2024 following a string of singles dating back to the summer of 2023, and
Part Two followed this past September. I would have talked about it a
lot sooner if I hadn't still been going through a gauntlet of personal hardship, but better late than never, right?
Part One was jaded and pessimistic for much of its runtime. Songs like "Nervous" and "The Dam" really zeroed in on Chris seemingly not knowing himself anymore. "Pieces" was all about him "learning to live with this hole in my soul." Outside of maybe "The Reckoning" or the catchy-as-all-get-out title track, nothing really offered a glimmer of hope on the horizon. It preferred to sort of just stool in its anguish, which is totally understandable, and all you
can do sometimes, when life just pummels you repeatedly.
Part Two aims to be that sunlight balking through the pervasive darkness, striking a tone that still isn't all too optimistic, but at least acknowledges there's a
chance to turn the page.
The quaint instrumental piece "The Seeds" starts us off, using its cool, and sadly unrealized, (wish it was a full song) mix of skittering beats, brooding keys, and overall ominous atmosphere, to sort of tee us up before the absolutely volcanic romp "Divided" launches us into the stratosphere. Chris even remarks "aim for the sun" in its opening verse. Lyrically, "Divided" is an anthemic unifier and call to action, albeit in a cheesy way that is fairly typical for this brand of post-grunge radio rock. Chris and company get a pass, though, because all the context I alluded to before lets me know that his heart is in every word. There's some cool imagery, and the guitar solo is f*cking gnarly, exploding with an inertia and purpose as fiery as Chris' vocals.
But then we swing back into the exact kind of dread and dejection that defined so much of
Part One, and even more so, in the form of "The Day I Die." Structurally, it is bar none the heaviest song this band has put to record, even besting "The Dam" from
Part One in that regard. Lyrically, only a later song on here can rival it. Once again, Chris is brushing up against the kinds of places your mind takes you when you're vulnerable, explicitly touching on themes of death and suicidal ideation. Backed by eerie guitar fills and hissing vocal ad-libs, Chris bares it
all out:
I keep on dreaming of the day I die
Where I escape the darkness in my own mind
It's like I'm at a funeral, something beautiful
I wanna stay, but I know I gotta let it go
I keep on dreaming of the day I die
And I don't wanna wake up
The extended bridge of the song acts as sort of a gasp for air before its last sixty seconds, which consist of a blistering guitar solo, a last serving of that haunting refrain, and incisive screamed vocals from Chris on the outro. It's a tough song to sit through at times, and one that has even prompted fans and listeners to express concern about Chris' mental health. By all accounts, he seems to be doing better today, but this is still a song that drains everything out of you. However, it seems to be the last dying gasp of this particular sense of sorrow for the
Shock To The System era, because the rest of the EP, though not in all cases, takes on a more consistently hopeful timbre.
"The Bottom" is an example of a song that starts to zoom out a bit, still influenced by, and focusing on, Chris' own life challenges, but ostensibly alluding to things beyond the loss of his mother or daughter. He references "all the lies that I've been told, a kiss and a promise," suggesting there's other companions and people in his life he's turned to in recent times who didn't show up. In any case, he assures us that he's managed to "climb my way back from the bottom," realizing the potential for rebirth that "The Reckoning" hinted at in
Part One. With "Terrified" we
again oscillate back to more crestfallen motifs, but we're thankfully safe from the emotional depths that "The Day I Die" had brought us down to. This stanza is identical to "Pieces" from
Part One, where Chris talked about being "afraid of my own shadow." By the same token, "Terrified", which is pretty much Halloween distilled into song form, sees him likening himself to a "monster" that's "afraid of the dark." Dock points if it scans too clichéd for your liking, but I think its suits the broader message Chris is trying to convey, and it features another sizzling guitar solo that's fun to just jam the f*ck out to.
"Razor" keeps in step with "The Bottom" in terms of widening the scope of what we're looking at lyrically. The passages are still authentic and lived in for Chris' part, but are open-ended enough that a listener could easily interpret and extrapolate them in a way that resonates with their own experience. Chris is at odds with a nameless antagonist who's slighted him; "Your words became a blade, you cut me deep/You cut me like a razor," he laments. Is he talking to an ex-friend? Perhaps. A romantic interest? I'm going to say not, since he's married, but a listener having such trouble in that department could very well apply it in that way. His daughter? It's possible, and that one's scary to consider. He does repeat the phrase "and now you're gone." Perhaps anger is part of his grief, as very often can be the case. One thing is for sure, it's a raucous song instrumentally, and the last bow for the last explicitly vitriolic subject matter that's been present before we reach our curtain call.
"Antidote" is the final song here, and I feel compelled to say in advance of my detailed thoughts that it is, in my opinion, Daughtry's greatest song
ever and one that's already ascended the ranks of my personal favorite songs of all time.
Ostensibly closing the book on both the
Shock To The System era (unless there's a third act!) and his own personal turmoil of the last few years, Chris at least implicitly addresses his fallen daughter once more. He's no doubt reflecting from the vantage point of recovery after soldering through the storm, but he's obviously still greatly affected by the storm, and would certainly prefer if things hadn't happened as they did. With the loss of my grandma, and more broadly, of the person I used to be, still so fresh in my mind, this song's chorus provokes in me deeply complex emotions and thoughts:
I couldn't stop the rain
When the hurricane was coming
I couldn't keep the pace
With a runaway train going off the tracks
Looking back
It's hard to watch the poison take control
When you don't have the antidote
Later on, he
goes there, remarking that he would willingly give his life to restore hers if possible;
I wish that I could take the pain
If only I could take your place
When there's nothing left
There's nothing left to lose
As I think about what this means for Chris, I imagine he means to say that a large aspect of his grief surrounding the loss of his daughter stems from being powerless to save her, having to 'watch the poison take control', which in this case was the confluence of depression and helplessness that ultimately predisposed this beautiful young woman to take her own life. One could also picture Chris, now in this reflective mode, mentally replaying these events, noting how they broke him, changed him into a person he didn't recognize.
Thinking about how I connect these words to my experience, both scenarios ring true. My grandmother was, for better or worse, a stubborn person. She became increasingly ill in the last years of her life, but wouldn't seek medical treatment. When finally forced to accept it, it was too late. The 'poison' had, undoubtedly, taken control. As I look back myself, I feel my own sense of guilt. Maybe I should have intervened earlier, even if it wasn't my place to. Maybe I could have convinced her to not idle, and perhaps she'd still be here. It's also very possible that she'd still not be, so I try not to beat myself up too much. Then for myself, there definitely was a 'poison' that took control within me. Her passing was obviously the main impetus, but it was really a host of events and factors, as I mentioned earlier, that broke me down, and involuntarily changed me into a bitter, irritable, scared person that I didn't want to be, that I didn't recognize, that I ultimately vowed I would never be again. Hindsight is always 20/20, and I know that I didn't have the 'antidote' to avert all of this, even if I wanted to.
Thankfully, I did find the antidote, and it came from a place I never expected: from God.
I'm not going to beat you over the head with religious sentiment, or scold you or tell you that you must believe as I believe, because that would be wrong of me. I'm merely speaking for myself, as only I can. I was raised Catholic, and following roughly a decade away from my faith in my adult life thus far, I rediscovered it last year. On December 29th of this past year, I sustained an injury just outside of my house. I slipped, made hard contact with the brick of ice beneath me and cracked the back of my head open. Several cars passed by as I laid on my back before attempting to pick myself up. I had to be rushed to the hospital, where I got three staples in the wounded area. Mercifully, I remained lucid and functional throughout the injury, the treatment, and recovery. I got
very lucky. I hit the ground so hard that I could have very well been knocked unconscious. If so, I'd have to bank on the good will of a passerby seeing me and coming to my aid, and that's without factoring in how long I'm laying there in the interim. I could have lost my life in this accident, and I'm so grateful that I didn't. I genuinely believe that God spared my life, because He has a purpose for me that is yet unfulfilled. This hope and belief excites me to officially
put to rest all of the negative emotions and behaviors I've endured and exhibited in the last two and a half years and begin anew.
I think, hope, that Chris Daughtry is on a similar trajectory himself, irrespective of how he feels about spirituality. I pray he and his family are doing okay, and that he will continue to trek along with clenched fists, ready for anything.
Shock To The System (Part One) was the soundtrack when I needed a visceral pressure valve for all of my jaded musings, and
Part Two has helped me come to the conclusion that life can,
must, still go on. Whether God does it for you like He does for me, or you find that spark entirely in yourself, it is a gift to be alive. We only get to float on this blue and green rock once, and for an indeterminate amount of time. It would be foolish to waste the chance to discover, to explore, to leave something bigger than myself behind. Even when life is a struggle and a roller-coaster, it doesn't have to be, at least not forever. It can still be an adventure, and there's never a wrong time to get the ball rolling. For me, it feels like today. Comforted by my Savior's sacrifice and victory over death, and also by the purring grey tabby cat on my lap (I named him Hermie after the misfit elf from
Rudolph), I look ahead pointedly to the sunrise, to the morning, and all the opportunity it brings. And with the morning comes the rest of my life. I am ready now. The journey that has preceded this new chapter was a long and winding one, but I needed it. I needed to shed my former self, to know once and for all who I want to be and who I don't want to be.
There's nothing like a shock to the system.
