ARTIST: Three Days Grace
ALBUM: Life Starts Now
LABEL: Jive Records
RELEASE DATE: September 22, 2009
Back to the Grind!
Photo by Danny Clinch
Written by Alex Fovell
The third album released by the Canadian band signed to Jive Records, Three Days Grace, Life Starts Now combines the familiar sound of Adam Gontier’s voice that we’ve come to recognize with the apparent drama of his life. Gontier wastes no effort exhausting the theme of broken hearts and lost love: nine of the twelve songs on the album fit this description. It takes an ear much more discerning than mine to differentiate songs from this album to those from another. I suppose the one thing it lacks is growth, from song to song. Band members have alleged they were going for a fresher and more upbeat sound, but I don’t see it. Not to make it sound worse than it is. Life Starts Now made available on 9/22/09 is very much of the same caliber as their previous albums. Objectively speaking, the music is professional sounding and polished. Their single release, “Break,” while not as hooky as say “Never Too Late” or “I Hate Everything About You,” it demonstrates a certain level of staying power in the alternative rock community. Relish it now. In a few months you’ll hear it every ten minutes on your road trip through Ohio. The song that lent its name to the album, “Life Starts Now,” is possibly my favorite. It has this habit of grabbing the listener and making them melt with choruses and key changes. From a purely mechanical standpoint, one technique that Three Days Grace seems to have dialed down is the break-down / build-up, as evidenced by their singles past and present. It’s easy to get invested in a song that carries you with its volume and energy and every song from Life Starts Now makes use of this in some way or another. The lyrics apply several poetic elements that make for a much more graceful complexity than at first glance. This, in addition to their sneaky way of swaying the listener with really epic choruses certainly is a recipe for a successful set of songs. Perhaps Three Days Grace can foster polarized opinions from a demographic, but it is in my opinion that this most recent release could influence and possibly reverse the negative attitudes that have accumulated over the years. Life Starts Now is better than decent and well worth the purchase. Download from Amazon or iTunes or get it at www.threedaysgrace.com.