Shinedown "Amaryllis"

While their last album was The Sound of Madness, this sounds like the sound of minor frustration; not that the change is that radical. It has been said that some of the songs’ ferocity are diluted due to studio processing. Just listen to devour, and you may hear a difference; the opener for this album still gets the old “Adrenaline” pumping. The threat of the “Bully” has always been there, but it has seemed to get worse these past few years. How one person can hurt another without feeling remorse is disheartening, but that could be because that is the only pain they can control; that does not make it right. While the intention was good, Brent Smith sounds like one when it comes to the chorus toward the end. As for the title track and the fourth cut, they are much more melodic, and sound as studio-assisted ingenuity that makes this album a worthy followup. “Enemies” of enthusiastic guitar-work might not be pleased, but just try it with Three Days Grace. One of the stand-outs is “I’m Not Alright,” mostly due to the lush composition, but when you’re “All messed up/And slightly twisted” you ask yourself “Am I sick or am I gifted?” The anthem for the “Nowhere Kids” replicates the hunger for retribution, and energy, that made another song so easy to devour.  The swaying groove is not the “Miracle,” but the person who inspired the song; those who have found their better half, or someone that makes their life better knows what I mean: “As you sparkle in the sky/I’ll catch you while I can/ Cause all we are is all I am.”  This is one of the first times I have heard piano from this band; almost as if Sir Elton John could have wrote the crow and the butterfly. Unbeknownst to Shinedown, they were returning the favor that Meat Loaf began when he wrote a song of madness; as well echoing the vocals of Scott Stapp, and brining us into the new dark ages. “My Name (Wearing Me Out)” stresses the importance of surrounding yourself with positive people who support you, without being overbearing; just taken from his experience. Call me irrelevant, call me inane, because the flourish of bells and strings stand out in my brain.  The memory of someone we once knew, now lives “Through The Ghost,” it’s like we hardly knew.