By: James Southworth
Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
There are not many artists who can hold the prestige of being a consistently successful mainstream rock band like Shinedown. It's somewhat fitting that they, Breaking Benjamin, and Three Days Grace all released a new album in the same year, because I'd consider the three of them the biggest modern rock successes. I really respect Shinedown as a band; in fact, they've grown on me big time over the years. Brent Smith has a powerhouse of a vocal performance that can be hard to match up with, as his voice has a rock quality to it that sounds effortless. I've liked most of this band's efforts, although their undeniable standouts are their albums "Sound of Madness" and especially "Amaryllis". That album is probably one of the best mainstream rock efforts I've heard, as it is very creative and diverse. The band had a pretty major loss with the weak album "Threat to Survival" in 2015. The album had all these confusing attempts of them trying to go pop. Thankfully, the band has mostly departed from that road with their new concept record "Attention Attention". This release tells the story of a man who starts out in a very negative state of mind and ends up on a positive road of redemption and greater appreciation of humanity. While this album's concepts, music, and lyrics aren't the deepest, I appreciate how straight up fun it is. It is, mostly, a highly enjoyable rock album.
The album intriguingly starts with the intro track "The Entrance", where you hear a man (the protagonist of this concept record) sitting in a chair sighing. It's almost like he's getting ready to vent out his frustrations, so it's fitting that the payoff is the aggressive lead single "Devil". This song had me hyped for the album, and it stands tall in context of the release as a whole. This song has been compared to "Cut the Cord" on the last album. I agree with that comparison, except I think this song amps up what that track was doing to a higher degree. The guitar riffs in this song are massive and cut deep. There's also a choral effect that plays which gives this song a satisfying, epic feel to it. Brent unleashes vocal fury on this track, especially in the chorus as he sings out passionately "It's about to get heavy". This song is indeed pretty heavy for Shinedown. In fact, a lot of the material in the first half of this album is the heaviest that the band has ever done, which is something I've always wanted from them. "Black Soul" is easily Shinedown's most intense song to date, as Brent's vocals near on screaming in the chorus. I love the track's interesting beginning with a piano riff playing. It sets up a unique atmosphere which works for this song. The rage this track has throughout is great, and the drumming by Barry Kerch is a major standout. This song is an instant highlight because it sounds like nothing that the band has done before. I also can't deny that I find "Kill Your Conscience" to be a track that you can have easy fun with. The song is self aware, and doesn't take itself to seriously. It's meant to be a pump-up track, and because it has some legitimately intriguing lyrics ("So you kill your conscience, cry yourself to sleep/Kill your conscience, better you than me/You're all plugged in, ready and rehearsed") the fun aspects of it work immensely to the band's favor.
My favorite song comes in the lyrically and musically heavy track "Pyro". In context of this album's story, this seems to be where the character's anger at all the darkness inside him takes a turn for the worse. I find it very interesting that the character is questioning whether he inherited all this anger from his family, or if he's the one that's the problem and doesn't even realize it: "Am I a headcase? Did I inherit this?/Am I a hypocrite to say that I ain't feelin' this?". I adore the guitar work in this track, as Zach Meyers really shows off in an amazing guitar solo, and the bass work by Eric Bass is awesome as well. The band as a whole have great chemistry on this track, as Brent also puts plenty of weight and passion into his singing. This track has an endless catchiness to it, but also a lot of lyrical weight. This is not only the best track on the album, but one of my favorite Shinedown songs to date. This song is followed up well by the powerful ballad "Monsters". Brent is the star of the show here, taking his vocals to unexpected heights. I could feel the character's struggle to overcome his internal demons. I've mentioned that the idea of demons/monsters as metaphors for struggles has become tiresome to me in the rock genre, but Shinedown put a new enough spin on it to make it work. "Creatures" has some nice orchestration to it that make this song sound legitimately beautiful. I also find "special" to be an, ironically, special ballad. This song has an interesting idea of saying how as an individual you are not necessarily better than another person because of your qualities, but rather that humanity as a whole is special because of how we relate to one another. The album ends off on a high note with the anthemic "The Human Radio", which has a chorus that will almost certainly hook you in and make you want to chant along. It may be a little cliched, but I think this track will be one I come back to repeatedly. I also love the bright, pop/punk feel of "Brilliant", another unique track in Shinedown's discography as a whole. It ends the album with the main character finally being redeemed, and gives the album a sense of satisfying closure.
There are definitely some points of this album that undeniably bog it down. Like I mentioned before, this album's concept is not all that interestingly executed. I wish there had a few other tracks that had really tackled this main character's struggles in a less generic way. I liked when the band were fleshing the character out on tracks like "Pyro", "Black Soul", and "Monsters". But, there are definitely points in even the better songs (like "Creatures" or "Kill Your Conscience") that suffered from being too generalized. As far as specific songs go, it was definitely not a good thing that the title track is one of the worst songs here. This song is just insufferable to me. Brent tries this sort of rapping/spoken word style in the verses, and it doesn't work at all. The song tries to throw in all this symbolism, but it comes across as pretentious and pointless. The worst track here, though, is easily "Get Up". This song is absolutely insufferable, reminding me of something off Imagine Dragon's new album. I can't stand how repetitive the chorus is. This song doesn't fit at all into the overall harder rock style of this album. This song is sort of like "How Did You Love" off the band's last album, clearly just made to get radio appeal. I do unfortunately think this one could get radio play, and it sickens me. "Darkside" is a very weirdly structured song with a stuttered chorus that doesn't work for me. Also, the line "I might be mental but I've still got my cred" made me cringe very hard. "Evolve" isn't necessarily a bad song, but there's something about it that just turns me off. Maybe it is the fact that it once again is a bit repetitive and doesn't do much to stand out.
I was very disappointed with "Threat to Survival", as it marked a change for Shinedown that was often confusing and certainly generic (I mean, what the heck were they thinking with the country/pop song "State of My Head"? That song still gets me mad every time I think about it). "Attention Attention", thankfully, sees the band back on track. Even though this album has some generic moments and its concept isn't very original, the good tracks here are good enough for me to come back to the album repeatedly. It's definitely a plus that there's a few songs here I'd consider among Shinedown's best work, and I love the harder edge of the first half of this release. I'd say that you should check out this release, as it may surprise you. I'm excited to see the direction this band takes next!
Favorite Songs: "Pyro", "Black Soul", "Devil", "Monsters", "The Human Radio"
Least Favorite Songs: "Get Up", "Attention Attention", "Darkside"
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