Leave a Whisper

Album Review

Shinedown is the latest rock combo to be signed out of Florida (in this case, Jacksonville) since the popular explosion of Creed and, to a point, Limp Bizkit. Shinedown has much more in common with the former on its Atlantic debut, Leave a Whisper — in fact, there's little on the album that doesn't have something in common with another group that listeners have heard before. The layered harmonies of Alice in Chains dominate the set, which musically is cousin to post-grunge types like Saliva and Puddle of Mudd. Brent Smith's vocals fall somewhere between Glenn Danzig and Layne Staley. He also channels Aaron Lewis for a little of that heavy band balladry on "Better Version" (sample lyrics: "...Caught a glimpse, but the reflection's only mine"; "It's almost like I'm paralyzed"). Elsewhere, chunky guitar riffs establish Shinedown as a capable hard rock band. "Left Out" and "In Memory"'s thundering power chords fade to chorus-channel dynamics in the verse, making room for more blustery lyricisms about personal pain, relationship woes, and other "boy, is life sucky" stuff — essentially, the same set of issues that seemingly all of these post-grunge rockers rant about. Coupled with a two-dimensional sound (sound number one: heavy! Sound number two: brooding!) which varies little from song to song, let alone from the sound of its peers, Shinedown's debut offers some hope that heavy music will right itself from the nasty stumble of its last few years. [The album's bonus track edition featured acoustic and multimedia material.]