I’m going to do something which isn’t easy for me: I’m going to
\nwrite some negative things about a group and album that I like.<\/p>\n
Godsmack could well have been called the surprise hit of 1998
\nwith their self-titled debut. Sully Erna and crew seemed to tap the
\nnerve center of today’s youth with their aggression-filled music,
\nand made a solid impression on the alternative-metal scene.<\/p>\n
Their follow-up release,
\nAwake<\/i>, follows in those same footsteps – often, too close to
\ntreading in the original path. And while the songs are enjoyable,
\nthis album really is a reflection of what could have been.<\/p>\n
I’ll get my biggest complaint out of the way early – can’t these
\nguys play songs in any chord but a “D” tuning? I understand the
\npower behind tuning guitars down one chord, but when all the songs
\nsound like they’re being played in the
\nexact same chord<\/i>, things get real boring real quick. Four
\nwords: been there, done that.<\/p>\n
That’s really the biggest obstacle that Godsmack face with
\nAwake<\/i>… the second being that they break precious little
\nnew ground on this disc. Unlike on
\nGodsmack<\/i>, I don’t hear any songs jumping out at me screaming
\npotential hit single (though the title track seems to be getting
\npeople’s attention). And it’s not that these songs are bad; if you
\nliked
\nGodsmack<\/i>, you’ll like
\nAwake<\/i>. But if you mixed up the songs from the two albums and
\nplayed them randomly to people, chances are they wouldn’t know they
\ncame from different creations.<\/p>\n
The only area where I did see Godsmack trying new things was in
\ntwo areas. The first was on the 49-second intro piece “The
\nJourney,” which is tied into the album’s closer “Spiral”. I did
\nlike the way that things came full circle at the end of this one.
\nAnd, in an interesting move, I don’t hear Erna’s vocals at all on
\n“Vampires,” a track which relies heavily on sampled sound bites.
\nIt’s kind of interesting in a way.<\/p>\n
\nAwake<\/i> has its share of good songs – I count “Sick Of Life,”
\n“Forgive Me” and “Bad Magick” in that group – but it feels like the
\nlistener is being handed the same material over and over again.
\nMaybe that’s what they want… but I tend to think that’s not the
\ncase.<\/p>\n
And that’s what bothers me about this disc. I know that Godsmack
\nhas the talent to take what they’ve done so far and raise it to a
\nnew level musically and creatively. Instead, it feels like they
\nchose to sit back and coast with
\nAwake<\/i> – and if the band doesn’t feel challenged, the
\nlistener won’t either.<\/p>\n
Godsmack is a talented group of musicians, and
\nAwake<\/i> will no doubt add to their legion of fans. But this
\nmarks two albums they’ve stuck to the same formula – and history
\nshows that if a band lives by the same formula, they also tend to
\ndie by it. Just a little something to think about.<\/p>\n
2000 Christopher Thelen and “The Daily Vault”. All rights
\nreserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without
\nwritten permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of
\nRepublic \/ Universal Records, and is used for informational
\npurposes only.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6515],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-36937","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-godsmack","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36937"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36937"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}