SOUND BITES

  You kind of have to hand it to Shinedown; where most of the bands that would be considered their contemporaries have made embarrassing attempts to keep in step with the times and/or retreated back to the comfort of the post-grunge sameness that was in vogue during the genre's collective heyday, Shinedown have tried to achieve something more. Rather than rehashing those tried and true modern rock radio tropes time and time again, this is a band that's not afraid to push their sound into more ambitious directions without fully letting go of that money-making nostalgia. It's a delicate, near-surgical touch that's required to do this whilst maintaining a certain level of success, and that they've managed to do so for the better part of their career is why I still pay attention to their records (and why I haven't kept up with, say, Breaking Benjamin or Godsmack). However, with seventh album Planet Zero, their ambitions may have exceeded their abilities. On paper, ...

When they arrived on the scene fifteen years ago, Shinedown found themselves already on the wrong side of history; a couple of years removed from the nu-metal and post-grunge heyday of bands like Staind and (welp) Nickelback, the band's debut album was considered standard rock radio fare upon its release and, a couple of moderately successful singles notwithstanding, Leave a Whisper didn't necessarily bode well for long-term relevance or viability of continued success. The thing is, they stuck around long enough (and, more importantly, fed radio enough hits) to buck the odds that were stacked against them; by the time their third album (2008's The Sound of Madness , considered by most fans as their best) ran its promotional course, they'd amassed a handful of formidable singles and built up a devoted fan base. Still, it proved to be a difficult status to maintain, and the band's following pair of albums (2012's Amaryllis and 2015's Threat to Survival ) sa...

Well, that didn't take long. After a dry spell in rock music news and a new release schedule that started to resemble a dystopian wasteland, 2012 has gotten off to a rather hasty start in the form of a pair of new single premieres. Shinedown released Bully  as a single today alongside word that their fourth album Amaryllis will be released on March 27, and saw fit to declare on their official website, "This is going to be the 2012 anthem! All bullies beware!" Now, I don't want to start 2012 on a downer, but this isn't really a great sign of things to come if this is the one you're calling "the 2012 anthem".  It's standard radio fare, a drop of dogshit in the landfill of generic rock garbage that's stunk up the airwaves in recent years.  Shinedown aren't this bad; over the course of their first three albums, they've amassed a good following and a handful of stellar tracks that rock hard without dumbing it down.  This is trite, ...