Unitron
Three Days Grace-Human
'Human' is the fifth studio album by alternative metal/hard rock band Three Days Grace. When it was announced that original vocalist Adam Gontier left the band, many fans of the band were upset. While I wouldn't call myself a big fan of the band, their first two albums are pretty good. Gontier's replacement was Matt Walst, who sounds pretty similar to Gontier.
Last year, when they released the first single 'Painkiller', I was not impressed. It sounds like a pretty generic radio-rock song, and it did not make me hopeful. However, I found the second single 'I am Machine' to be pretty good. It has a mechanical atmosphere, and like their first two albums has a nice melancholy sound. I eventually gave this a chance to see how it was, and sadly 'I am Machine' along with 'Nothing's Fair in Love and War' (Moronic emo title aside) were the only decent songs.
While most fans of the band are simply hating on the album just because Gontier isn't here, I find Matt Walst to be a decent vocalist. Yeah, he sounds similar to Gontier, but he has a decent voice nonetheless. For me the vocals are nowhere near the problem, it's the music that I don't like. The fatal flaw of the album is the instrumentation. This of course says something about heading down the path of radio rock. As long as you have a whiny vocalist or one that says 'YEAH' every few seconds, it doesn't seem like anyone will care too much. A perfect example is the song 'Human Race' which, simply put, sounds like the instruments and vocals are plodding slowly along like they're stuck in a pile of cement. Don't even get me started on 'Landmine', I wrote better lyrics when I was seven years old.
Overall, it has a couple decent songs. Unfortunately, it feels like they focused too much on the vocals and too little on the instruments. Most on the album feels bland, generic, and repetitive. If later on they make more songs like 'I am Machine' or '...Love and War', then that will be nice. If you're interested in the band check out their first two albums, unfortunately this album leaves a lot to be desired. Hope you found this review helpful.
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