Review Summary: In two words the album is mediocre and disappointing.
Usually, having their success depending on catchy singles that will be played over and over on the radio, one of mainstream bands’ concerns should be keeping the fans interested with new material. Seems like Three Days Grace chose to ignore that rule and enjoyed the success of their previous album a little longer than usual. One could be forgiven for thinking these guys were working hard on their next effort to heal the flaws that come with every work. And well, Three Days Grace are good ilusionists: every piece of the album they revealed before its official release was relatively impressive – the somewhat intriguing title ‘Life Starts Now’ and the imaginative art cover are good examples. Even the the lead single
Break didn’t disapoint at all, combining the strong and average points of the past works (catchy riff and chorus, good bass in verses, competent scream-out vocals, acceptable lyrics and - the usual - generic druming) and even adding a small, simple solo - but still a solo - to the mix, an unusual thing to see in this band. Too bad it's so filled with special efects that Adam can’t really sing it properly live. At least the song was pretty competent though, and one could think the album would enjoy the same level of quality. Unfortunally, like aforesaid, that was just an illusion.
In two words the album is mediocre and disappointing. Occasional good musical or lyrical moments are overshadowed by uninspired songwriting or chiche sentences.
Bitter Taste is actually one of the highlights in this, despite the poor lyrics. The heavy riff in the begining is one of the best on the album and so is the solo. Adam was able to pull out the angry and harsh vocals the song needed and you can actually hear the drummer doing something in the end besides keeping a beat. Other mentionable standout tracks include
No More and
Without You.
No More has a remarkable intro, starting with a simple guitar melody by Barry, joined by a smooth bass and beat just a moment later. Then Adam comes in screaming out “Give me a reason to stay here” which he follows with a brief bridge before the chorus. The bridge actually contains the best lyrical part of the whole album, an intriguing antithetical and parallelistic strophe. Enjoying
Without You depends on the listener’s mood for melancholic songs. Nonetheless, the song brings a different atmosphere to the album, being one of the few points where the band breaks with the formula and brings some diversity, not to mention a very expressive solo that drives the listener into the last two chorus of the song.
Someone Who Cares and
Life Starts Now have both nice intros, but both are literally assassinated by dull chorus and dull lyrics, except for one verse or other. There are also ambiguous songs in the album - you might hate
The Good Life for being such a dumb and imature song or you might like it because it can have the ability to raise up your moral;
Last To Know can be enjoyed for the nice piano intro or disliked for the meaningless lyrics and a rather disappointing melody.
World So Cold is another song that talks about a colder place than my fridge. One could even think that the re-re-recycled topic wouldn’t influence the music quality, but that’s not what happens since it’s just another average radio rock possible hit. I just think it’s pretty pathetic that Adam - who wrote the words for the likes of
Running Away and
Take me Under is now dropping lines like “I feel numb/I can’t come to life/ I feel like I’m frozen in time”. Just shows how lazy the band was while working on the album.
Bully and
Goin’ Down, on the other hand, feel like the typical and innofensive filler song.
Almost no song can be considered exactly good here. Most of them are hit and miss: good verse, bad chorus, good chorus, bad verse, bad lyrics, good instrumental. If the goal was to implement a new direction to their sound, well, mission not accomplished. At least very incomplete. But hey, everybody can have a second chance, right? Who knows if life will restart again in 2012?
Recomended Tracks:
Bitter Taste,
Break and
No More.
