Review Summary: Stop waiting on your fifteen minutes of fame, you're not special.
Mostly notable for buying Facebook likes, doctoring as well as viewbotting YouTube videos, and faking his way into booking a European tour which nobody showed up to, Jered Threatin has certainly amassed a large volume of publicity; most of which amounts to justifiably mocking him for his decisions. Threatin is living proof that social media can mislead; how he managed to fool everyone into thinking his shows would have packed the venues is truly astonishing. He’s a name that nobody knew before this, so surely the venues that booked him could have looked further into it before deciding to sign him on. It’s very telling as to why he went the route he did, as the music is less than satisfactory in multiple ways.
To say the least, the instrumentation is generic, radio-friendly hard rock at its most banal; you can tell how little effort was put into it in comparison to duping venues into thinking he was the next big thing. He’s not a
bad guitarist, as the solos on tracks like “Confusion” prove, but far too much of
Breaking the World relies on the same tropes that mars bands like Hinder and Saving Abel. Ballads like “All Your Pain” make an attempt to infuse more dynamic and emotion in the midst of what is largely an unsatisfying chore of an album. Threatin’s voice is easily the most interesting element of the release, but even that is less than ideal; he has absolutely zero concept of dynamic range, or even range at all, as even the softer songs feature his grating, post-grunge delivery, and he stays within the same octave the entire time. Lyrically, it’s nothing to write home about; it’s almost impossible to determine the meaning as they’re so vague it borders on complete gibberish, and the amount of repetition involved doesn’t help.
The production of
Breaking the World is alright enough for a bedroom session, but there are plenty of issues. The bass might as well be nonexistent when anything more than an acoustic guitar is playing alongside it, as it’s almost as low in the mix as the bass on Metallica’s
...And Justice for All. Drum samples are in full effect, which seems to be the case for most album as underground as this was upon release; one such example is The Intercedent’s
Amidst the Storm, which actually contains faker drums than this. Of course, that’s a far superior release, so it’s more excusable there. At least there’s no noticeable autotune on Threatin’s voice, although that wouldn’t have saved it; autotune doesn’t automatically give a vocalist the dynamic range he sorely lacks, and why would it? The best part of the mix is the guitar, as that is the only part that doesn’t feel fake or suffer from massive dynamic range issues.
Is this unlistenable? No, not in the slightest. There are some salvageable moments that easily would have been put to better use on the next Alter Bridge record. Is this derivative, forgettable and utterly banal? Absolutely. It’s no wonder he faked it to score a tour. At least you got your 15 minutes of fame, Jered. It ruined your chances of even having a real career, but at least people know who you are. Fucking brilliant. In the words of Shinedown’s Brent Smith,
“I'm not trying to rain on your parade, but you're not special. I'm not trying to bring you down, I'm not trying to sound so ineffectual, but you're not special.”
