Posts Tagged ‘Sevendust’
Sevendust “Sevendust (Definitive Edition)” Album Review
Back in April, when I reviewed Sevendust’s new album Cold Day Memory, I said that after eight albums, the band’s sound was noticeably stagnating. This happens a lot with bands that lock onto a sound and just choose to make minor tweaks over the years rather than wholesale changes or flirtations with experimentation.
And so while Sevendust’s self-titled debut album is not a huge sonic departure from the tunes they are cranking out today, it does represent the template for everything that has followed in a prolific career that began in the mid-Nineties.
And as they say, you only get one first impression so make it count.
Sevendust definitely did that with their debut, and as a testament to its lasting impact, the album has received the deluxe reissue treatment complete with new remasterings of the songs and some extra rare and live tracks added on.
Sevendust are back with their eighth album, which is pretty amazing for a band who made their name back in the nu-metal heydays of the late 90s. Most of the other bands that sprung up around that time are long since gone, but Sevendust have been grinding away this whole time, keeping up a remarkable schedule of releasing a new album pretty much every other year.
Cold Day Memory is an important milestone for the band because it marks the return of guitarist/vocalist Clint Lowery back into the fold. He had previously left the band after the Seasons album to work with Dark New Day and Korn.
His return is being widely hailed as a return to form for the band, but in all honesty the sonic differences are hardly noticeable. I’m sure the reunification of Sevendust’s original lineup meant a lot to the band’s chemistry and how they operated in the studio, but the end results are still very much like the preceding seven albums – with Lowery or without.
Here’s a sampling of some interesting stuff going on in the world of metal:
* Mudvayne has debuted their new video for the song “Beautiful and Strange.” It’s the second video in a three part series. And it didn’t take long for the video to be banned from all major outlets. One viewing and you’ll understand why. Censors don’t usually take kindly to buried-alive fallen angels digging up the graves of surprisingly full-chested naked, dead women and then proceeding to mount them and bang them silly all while images of torture and a girl actually getting her lips sewed together flash on screen. But hey, that’s fuckin’ metal! Go watch the necrophiliac’s dream over on VampireFreaks.com.
* Killswitch Engage have a new song, “My Obsession,” on the new God of War video game. Stream it at Noisecreep. (It’s really good.)
* Check out the cover art for Sevendust’s new album, Cold Day Memory, and prepare to be severely underwhelmed. Seriously, that’s the best you could come up with?
* Deftones have released the track list for their new album, Diamond Eyes.
* If anyone (like me) was hoping Limp Bizkit might return to the sound of their first album and/or their last album (aka more emphasis on the band, less on Fred Durst and rapping) this news should dash those hopes: Rappers Raekwon and Paul Wall will both have guest appearances on Gold Cobra.
* Dutch violin player, Karianne Brouwer, has a really cool cover of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters”:
http://www.vimeo.com/9758791-Sam
Metal Roundup: Tuesday, Feb. 16
Here’s a sampling of some interesting stuff going on in the world of metal:
* Sevendust have chosen the track “Unraveling” to serve as the first single from their new album, Cold Day Memory, which is set to be released on April 20. You can listen to it now on YouTube. It’s decidedly less heavy than “Forever Dead”, the first song they released from the album, and not as good, in my opinion.
* Godsmack is streaming their new single, “Crying Like A Bitch,” over at their MySpace page. There is some speculation that the song was written about Motley Crue’s member Nikki Sixx. It’s well known that Godsmack was very upset with the antics of Motley Crue during last summer’s Crue Fest 2, which Godsmack played on. As for the song itself, I’m not feeling the production values. It sounds a little hollow and it’s not a big change from their last album.
* The Sword have finally gone back into the studio to work on recording their third album. They have chosen Matt Bayles to produce the effort.
* Limp Bizkit’s Wes Borland keeps it real when discussing the prospects for his reunited band’s new album, Gold Cobra: “I think that everyone who hated Limp Bizkit before will continue to hate Limp Bizkit. It’s not like we, all of a sudden, grew up and started making smarter music.” I’m not one of those people who completely writes off Limp Bizkit as a garbage band. I actually liked Three Dollar Bill, Yall$ and The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1). Those albums really let the guys behind Fred Durst shine and there’s no question that Borland, bassist Sam Rivers, and drummer John Otto are talented guys. Borland, especially, can write some serious riffs. He proved what a good musician he is with his side project, Black Light Burns. So I was hoping Limp Bizkit would continue on with the foundation they set before splitting up with The Unquestionable Truth. But Borland has thrown some water on that idea by saying the new music has a “party kind of vibe. It’s a little bit like the old stuff, but with a little bit of maybe a Daft Punk vibe thrown in on some of it.” Needless to say, my hopes are not high for this one.
-Sam
Sevendust leak new track
Sevendust’s eighth studio album, Cold Day Memory, is set to be released this April.
The band released one of the new songs on Friday. It’s called “Forever Dead” and it hews pretty closely to the Sevendust formula that they’ve been sticking with for the past three or four records. It’s a formula that works, though, so there’s no complaining here (although I do hope there’s more screaming on this record than this song would suggest).
Check it out:
Full track listing for Cold Day Memory is after the jump: