Review Summary: You already know what this sounds like
Despite being long removed from their prime, Shinedown have managed to remain a staple of mainstream alternative rock. Vocalist Brent Smith can be credited with this feat thanks to his powerful voice and impressive range; he’s the type of singer who can elevate an average song into something truly special. What should be a blessing has become a crutch though, as Shinedown’s songcraft has been on autopilot since 2012’s
Amaryllis. The band seems content to churn out extremely safe radio rock tunes, while allowing Smith to be the delineating factor between them and the hundreds of other similar-sounding bands out there. As frustrating as that may be for someone like me – a fan since 2003’s dark and emotionally poignant
Leave a Whisper – the formula has proven profitable for them. From a commercial standpoint they’re doing just fine, so there is no impetus for them to change.
The lazily titled
EI8HT, signifying as many LPs as they’ve released so far, is symbolic of this record’s lacking ambition.
EI8HT is a bloated eighteen song record that does little to alienate its fanbase (say what you will about
Planet Zero, but at least it got people talking) while also bringing very few noteworthy “highlights” to the table. There’s nothing on
EI8GHT that you haven’t heard from Shinedown before – in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the band rounded up a bunch of b-sides, prettied them up a bit, and then dropped them in the form of this LP. There’s a sense of deja vu at every turn, and even the best moments here ring a little hollow because of it.
The middling songwriting chops on display would be more forgivable if the lyrics – which have in fairness never been Shinedown’s strong suit – didn’t so frequently stand out in a bad way. I’m not saying that Brent Smith needs to transform into a poet overnight, but simply avoiding embarrassing cliches could have rescued a number of tracks here. The worst offender is probably “We out here, we out here / Burning down the disco”, but generally speaking most of the writing here feels nonsensical and mashed together without thought. What exactly does it mean when Smith sings, “I feel like an imposter / Think I need a doctor / Taken on a monster”? In many cases, what would otherwise be competent – if safe – musicality takes a turn for the worse because whilst listening, you begin to question what the fuck they’re actually trying to convey across these
eighteen tracks. When you come to the realization that there’s nothing at the core of this massive album, the feeling is quite empty.
Credit where it’s due though, there are still enough decent moments on
EI8HT to make a formidable EP-sized playlist out of this thing’s nauseating bloat. ‘Safe and Sound’ is one of Shinedown’s heaviest songs in years, sounding like something that could have landed on
The Sound of Madness and helped to offset that record’s ballad-heavy tracklist. ‘Dance, Kid, Dance’ is one of their catchiest songs in a handful of album cycles, even if the chorus is a tad awkward (“My education's wearing off / My generation's getting soft”). There are a few power ballads that get the job done, like the earnestly delivered ‘Dizzy’ and the country-tinged ‘Searchlight’, although they still ultimately feel like drops in the bucket considering Shinedown’s career-long penchant for excellent balladry. For me, the two best tracks – ones that I’d actually claim hold up against Shinedown’s best – are the opener ‘At The Bottom’ and the mid-album gem ‘Machine Gun’. The former’s over-the-top theatrical scope feels ambitious against the backdrop of
EI8HT’s milquetoast creativity, while the latter blends urgent verses with an unexpectedly high-pitched, soaring chorus from Smith. If Shinedown could have crafted a whole album that stretched their abilities to the limits like those two songs do, then we’d be having an entirely different discussion about
EI8HT.
Unfortunately,
EI8HT is a matter of harvesting anything even slightly distinctive from its homogenous hour-long runtime. Again, there’s nothing here that’s egregiously poor from a musical perspective. The lows aren’t that low, the highs aren’t that high, and the lyrics are often confounding. It’s difficult not to view
EI8HT as something of an obligatory release – a large track dump designed at garnering whatever attention/streams/sales this band can glean while in cruise control mode. It feels very safe and uninspired – a familiar sensation from a band that seems pretty much resigned to their fate at this point.
