Post by Ben on Mar 16, 2014 7:45:29 GMT 2
If I ever needed proof that drinking is bad, I got it tonight. I was a couple beers in, browsing Amazon, and what despicable thought enters my mind? "Hey, I wonder what that shitty band Three Days Grace is up to?"
THAT led to THIS, my review of their last album "Life Starts Now."
Enjoy.
Rock Ends Now
For some inexplicable reason, I had this thought the other day: "I wonder whatever happened to Three Days Grace?" Jogging my memory, I determined the last thing I remembered about the band (apart from hating the singles "Break" and "The Good Life" when I first heard them on the radio) was that lead singer Adam Gontier had bailed out. Apart from that, I had no idea what their status was. Curiosity aroused, I eventually talked myself into listening to their 3rd studio release, Life Starts Now.
Whoops.
Where do I even begin with this mess? For starters, Life Starts Now isn't even a rock album- It's a pop album dressed up, packaged, and marketed as a rock album. "Lost in You" is the first major offender in this regard. Its guitars have all the unmitigated excitement of a pet rock, but Three Days Grace doesn't even try to hide the fact that they're just a backdrop for Gontier's sappy, layered vocals. They might as well have given him a synth to work with if they're going to be that lazy with their writing.
And yet "Lost in You" is not even the worst example of pop-rock garbage on the album, if you can believe it. Two songs later "No More" sneaks Auto-Tune into the mix. Auto-Tune. In rock. It's done just slyly enough that most listeners probably won't notice, but it's there. And it's at this point that anybody with even a shred of self-respect is cringing, hopelessly wondering if the album will improve later on.
The answer is predictably and undoubtedly "No."
As if being genre-juked isn't heinous enough, the inanity of the lyrical content on Life Starts Now is so severe that you might actually find yourself longing to hear something written by Chad Kroeger (the first and last time I'll ever suggest THAT. Yeesh). Case in point, check out this gem: "What if I walked without you? / What if I ran without you? / What if I stand without you? / I could not go on." In the subsequent verses, Gontier continues in this intellectually stimulating vein, changing one word at a time until you'd trade the use of your legs for it to just freaking END.
Maybe you're reading this and you're thinking "well, come on now; lyrics have never been Three Days Grace's bread and butter!" If this is the case, you're not only correct, but you'll also be horribly offended by the musicianship on Life Starts Now. The only way to explain how unrealistically boring the guitars are throughout the record is to imagine Gontier and Stock daring each other to write a simpler riff than the last until they filled a whole record with generic power chord progressions.
Given these sad-sack riffs that are far too bland to even be annoying, the uninspired vocals (Gontier sounds so bored I imagine he probably preferred rehab to the studio), and the fact that every song follows the exact same structure and clocks in at almost the exact same length, it's asinine to think people actually bought this record.
But they didn't just buy it- they bought it until it went Gold in the U.S. and Platinum in Canada!
Not only is this disturbing, but it's an affront to everything rock stands for. Even Gontier has since lamented his role in taking this pop album to the top of the charts, ultimately quitting the band because it was sucking all of his creativity. Yet, somehow, people are still listening to this tripe!
The saddest part about this whole sticky, awkward mess? Three Days Grace actually used to write some decent tunes. Radio-ready, money-making tunes all of them, but at least some of those tunes had character.
I'd commend Three Days Grace for deluding so many people into buying such an awful record if I wasn't so concerned they're actually proud of what they've done with Life Starts Now. And to think that Gontier, the guy who was just fulfilling an obligation and clearly didn't even care how this record turned out, was the main creative force in this band. Yeah, it is THAT bad. Avoid Three Days Grace at all costs.
THAT led to THIS, my review of their last album "Life Starts Now."
Enjoy.
Rock Ends Now
For some inexplicable reason, I had this thought the other day: "I wonder whatever happened to Three Days Grace?" Jogging my memory, I determined the last thing I remembered about the band (apart from hating the singles "Break" and "The Good Life" when I first heard them on the radio) was that lead singer Adam Gontier had bailed out. Apart from that, I had no idea what their status was. Curiosity aroused, I eventually talked myself into listening to their 3rd studio release, Life Starts Now.
Whoops.
Where do I even begin with this mess? For starters, Life Starts Now isn't even a rock album- It's a pop album dressed up, packaged, and marketed as a rock album. "Lost in You" is the first major offender in this regard. Its guitars have all the unmitigated excitement of a pet rock, but Three Days Grace doesn't even try to hide the fact that they're just a backdrop for Gontier's sappy, layered vocals. They might as well have given him a synth to work with if they're going to be that lazy with their writing.
And yet "Lost in You" is not even the worst example of pop-rock garbage on the album, if you can believe it. Two songs later "No More" sneaks Auto-Tune into the mix. Auto-Tune. In rock. It's done just slyly enough that most listeners probably won't notice, but it's there. And it's at this point that anybody with even a shred of self-respect is cringing, hopelessly wondering if the album will improve later on.
The answer is predictably and undoubtedly "No."
As if being genre-juked isn't heinous enough, the inanity of the lyrical content on Life Starts Now is so severe that you might actually find yourself longing to hear something written by Chad Kroeger (the first and last time I'll ever suggest THAT. Yeesh). Case in point, check out this gem: "What if I walked without you? / What if I ran without you? / What if I stand without you? / I could not go on." In the subsequent verses, Gontier continues in this intellectually stimulating vein, changing one word at a time until you'd trade the use of your legs for it to just freaking END.
Maybe you're reading this and you're thinking "well, come on now; lyrics have never been Three Days Grace's bread and butter!" If this is the case, you're not only correct, but you'll also be horribly offended by the musicianship on Life Starts Now. The only way to explain how unrealistically boring the guitars are throughout the record is to imagine Gontier and Stock daring each other to write a simpler riff than the last until they filled a whole record with generic power chord progressions.
Given these sad-sack riffs that are far too bland to even be annoying, the uninspired vocals (Gontier sounds so bored I imagine he probably preferred rehab to the studio), and the fact that every song follows the exact same structure and clocks in at almost the exact same length, it's asinine to think people actually bought this record.
But they didn't just buy it- they bought it until it went Gold in the U.S. and Platinum in Canada!
Not only is this disturbing, but it's an affront to everything rock stands for. Even Gontier has since lamented his role in taking this pop album to the top of the charts, ultimately quitting the band because it was sucking all of his creativity. Yet, somehow, people are still listening to this tripe!
The saddest part about this whole sticky, awkward mess? Three Days Grace actually used to write some decent tunes. Radio-ready, money-making tunes all of them, but at least some of those tunes had character.
I'd commend Three Days Grace for deluding so many people into buying such an awful record if I wasn't so concerned they're actually proud of what they've done with Life Starts Now. And to think that Gontier, the guy who was just fulfilling an obligation and clearly didn't even care how this record turned out, was the main creative force in this band. Yeah, it is THAT bad. Avoid Three Days Grace at all costs.
