When you review an album, I don’t truly believe it’s subjective to how the album appeals to listeners outside of its genre, because the listeners from the outside simply won’t even bother to check it out. So, why make it appeal to a variety of audiences, if the vast majority of those won’t even bother in the first place? In my opinion, an album should be scrutinized and valued for its appeal in its own genre. Now we come to the topic of Three Days Grace.
Life Starts Now was a release filled with bland lyrics, generally boring hooks, and soaring, memorable choruses. In other words, the perfect mainstream release. The lyrics are vocalized with melody and typical mainstream teenage angst, masterfully done by none other than Adam Gontier.
Gontier, as 3DG’s frontman has changed very little over the spread of the past three records, and attempts nothing too drastic in this newest installment. Rather, his singing has always been somewhat similar to previous releases. Needless to say, Gontier’s lyrics are actually quite vile and difficult to listen to.
“What if I live without you
What if I love without you
What if I died without you
I could not go on” -3DG (Without You)
I agree that the musicianship of 3DG is to be blunt, quite poor. Their less-than-pumping bass lines seem to just drone on and on in the background without cause. But this is what sells 3DG, this is their railroad to their train, their yin to their yang, their gravy to the turkey, their Maiden to their music. The single reason they manage to extort music out of themselves and continue doing so, is because their popular sound appeals to so many casual music listeners. The audiences they target are young teens between 12-16, who label this type of music as “heavy metal” and think they look cool walking down the hallways in their school blasting 3DG on their Skullcandies on full volume.
Speaking in terms of musical development, let’s rewind back to One-X, their album back in 2006 that went platinum. It was to say the least, very much superior to Life Starts Now. The concepts addressed in One-X, suicide, depression, love, friendship, are more or less re-applied here with a fresh coat of paint.
Let’s face it. Three Days Grace’s guitarist isn’t John Petrucci. Mainstream rock’s initial interests were never to pursue musical nirvana, but to entertain casual listeners and make albums.
3DG do a great job of delivering a record that satisfies mainstream rock fans.
Rating inside genre: 4/5
Rating outside genre: 2/5
*Make note that I did not rate this album until after I wrote this review*
