Review Summary: A twisted, graceful offering
One X is the one: the best Three Days Grace album, one of my favorite albums, one that had a key role in shaping my musical taste, one I love going back to because it holds up so well.
Before I describe all the nice things in every song, I’ll explain what I love about this album’s overall vibe, and this era of Three Days Grace. Yes, they were a 2000s post grunge through and through, and a pretty successful one at that, but their music has a lot more bite, and way more personality, than many of their peers, which is why it hits harder and has aged better. Three Days Grace don’t hold back, they go all the way to create a dark atmosphere while still writing some catchy melody.
For example, opener “It’s All Over” is all about the dark vibe, with its sinister guitar effects on the intro and equally sinister singing and lyrics from Adam Gontier, directed to someone who’s so far into their addiction that they don’t even care how they’re killing themselves with the substance abuse. The end of the song, with Adam repeating “and now you’re dead inside, still you wonder why”, and singing one last chorus ending on a growl and sinister guitar effect, is particularly haunting. I guess the song is about what Adam feared he might become if he couldn’t heal from his own addiction, which is a recurring theme throughout the album. It inspires some of their most creative songs, like the sweet, symphonic metal-inspired ballad “Over and Over”, which personifies a drug, comparing it to a bad relationship you can’t or maybe don’t want to leave. For a more typical Three Days Grace song, there’s “Pain”, about addiction, to painkillers, or to self-harm and generally putting yourself in danger, because you would “rather feel pain than nothing at all”. Those are scary things to admit, let alone to sing over nice, melancholic violins or catchy poppy grunge riffs.
“Animal I Have Become”, the big hit from the album, is about his self-loathing and desperate need to turn his life around, with an irresistibly catchy chorus, and an equally memorable main riff, full of urgent energy. However, the best combination of dark topics and catchy melodies would be “Riot”, an infectiously fast, lively, fiery track about rioting because you’re just sick of everything in your life. Adam sounds strangely compelling as he repeats “Let’s start a riot”, singing it on the choruses, and growling it at the end.
“Get out alive” is more directly about the fear that you won’t be able to turn your life around, and how if you want to survive, you have to fight like hell for it. The sinister riffs on the verses, and powerful, frantic chorus, really drive the message home. “Never too Late”, the sort-of-romantic ballad, has a similar topic about how you can change for life for the best, no matter how hard it may be, you just have to try. The album is dark, but not without any sense of hope.
But there’s another important theme on the album: break-up drama. Three Days Grace are great at angry, bitter songs about ugly break-up related emotions that you just need to get out. Like on “Let it Die”, a soft-to-angry song about being done with someone who was never satisfied with you. “You say that I didn’t try”, Adam repeats, showing how that was the most painful part of the break-up. “Gone Forever” has a similar ballad-to-rock progression, and it’s full of rage about how you’re better off without that awful relationship anyway. Adam sounds hurt and defiant at the same time, so pathetic and yet so relatable. He has a completely different mindset on “On My Own”, where he wonders “Am I too much” and sings about how guilty he feels for ruining his relationship and how he has to learn how to live alone. The song also has a really great slow build-up to a catchy, lively chorus. Three Days Grace can get a little repetitive, but they really know how to make music that sounds both catchy and vaguely dark and unsettling. That’s a really good description of their sound as a whole.
That’s why, when they write about a happy relationship, it’s called “Time of Dying”, and it’s the heaviest song on the album, about how only your true love can make your miserable life bearable. But its simple, angry and distorted riff quickly get stuck in your brain for the rest of your life. Or why the title track sounds less dark and angry than most of the album, but it’s a sort of self-empowerment anthem for people who have been hurt and have endured.
The last line of that song, the very last on the album is “We stand above the crowd”. Indeed, this album stands above the crowd, because in the lyrics, vocals and instrumentations, there’s a darkness in it that’s clearly genuine, that grabs your attention and makes you confront your own darker emotions. This album was one of the first rock albums I ever discovered and loved without my parents or friends’ recommendations. I think the reason it just clicked with me, is because I have a real bitter and dramatic streak (if you couldn’t tell from my reviews), so I could feel the emotion behind the lyrics even though I couldn’t really relate, at least not as a teen. I had found a healthy way to release the anger and confusion I felt sometimes. This album, along with “Fallen”, taught me how to appreciate music with dark lyrics, and helped me begin my journey into the rock and metal world.
And really, for a “gateway album”, you could do a whole lot worse. It’s one of those albums where I enjoy every song. It’s a really great example of Three Days Grace’s more accessible but still dark take on grunge, also one the greatest example of their songwriting, like a much better version of their debut. Three Days Grace never did anything else as good as this album, especially without Adam’s attention-grabbing voice and songwriting, but even then, it may not be the last time I’ll talk about them.
