Review Summary: Fundamentally broken.
Shinedown is one of those bands I really wanted to like. They were local, broke out, and made it big. It was fun watching a couple local kids kill it on the music scene, and once
Sound of Madness dropped, everyone else saw it too. In all fairness, it wasn’t that great of a record, but it served its purpose. It lit a fire in the music scene for a minute, and faded away. That’s all Shinedown really did anyways. They hit the ball, ran as far as they could, and struck out. The problem, however, is they kept swinging. Every time they pitched an album they swung and missed.
Threat to Survival did them no favors, and now we have
ATTENTION ATTENTION. With a name like that, one can only wonder.
ATTENTION ATTENTION is such a strange album. It’s hard to really describe what’s going on, where it’s going, or if it even works. The best way to describe it is Papa Roach and Imagine Dragons. ‘BLACK SOUL’ has a modern sound, nu-metal-ish vibe, and Brent Smith’s normal vocals. The album takes the pop appeal from
Threat to Survival and smashes it with
Us and Them. The sound of the album is such an odd texture overall. Once a minimalistic electronic intro comes into play, incomes a thick grunge riff to play over it. The contrasting textures make for a confusing experience. It’s hard to take this album seriously at times. The modern age mixing fusing with an outdated style is a cry for attention itself. The title track is even worse. Brent Smith tries to rap for a few bars before resolving on his usual vocals. They really push this positive vibe way too far. Once they start trying to implement modern minimalistic riffs into the chorus of ‘ATTENTION ATTENTION,’ it all goes downhill.
The album’s problematic in just about every way. Lyrics, though, are a huge ordeal with this record. Much like
Threat…, Brent Smith tries to be an inspiration to the masses. Instead of singing about gritty life lessons, Brent is the nice guy now. He wants to rile everyone up and make them a force of positivity. The bright vocals shining against a horrendously mixed pop/grunge mash up sounds like a bad remix album than anything else. “…when you're begging for a brick just to throw it back and forth. And you call each other sick, yeah, you're coming back for more,” are an excerpt from ‘KILL YOUR CONSCIENCE.’
‘PYRO’ is unbearable. The song tells the story of a fractured home life. This is normal territory for Shinedown, of course, but they decided to write a pop song instead. “What can you do? Bringin' you down when your momma is a burnout and your daddy is a pyro,” is taken from ‘PYRO’s’ pre-chorus. Brent Smith took a huge step down with this album. The lyrics are written so obvious and simplistic it’s ridiculous. There’s no atmosphere, mood, or ambiguity to invest in. It’s all so basic to the point of ‘this song is about [insert subject here].’ There’s very little in the album to appeal to old-school Shinedown fans. There might be a few songs, like ‘MONSTERS,’ which starts off with a familiar sound, but falls flat thereafter. Speaking of ‘MONSTERS,’ “Don't get angry, don't discourage: Take a shot of liquid courage. Leave a light on if you're able 'cause we both know you're unstable,” is such a cheap melody. This album gets worse from here.
Everything in
ATTENTION ATTENTION is forced, contrived, and cheap to the point of stereotype. It’s a poorly handled pop album that tries too hard to be rock. It’s almost like they’re trying to imitate their previous sound.
ATTENTION… is ridiculous because it tries to be two things at once. It can’t decide between rock or pop so it does both. I guess they feel fans won’t listen to it if it’s not rock. What they fail to understand is fans won’t listen to the album if it sucks. Overall,
ATTENTION ATTENTION doesn’t say or do anything important. It’s not unique, although it tries to be, and it’s far from anything coherent. Shinedown continues to tell the same old redemption story through a new sound and style. There aren’t any redeeming qualities to talk about. There might be a few cheap thrills for those who just want something to jam to. The main theme of the album is how short life is and how much we should appreciate it. If that’s the case, why not make something we can appreciate?
Standout Tracks
N/A
