Let's flash back a bit.
Late 2012. Post-grunge band Three Days Grace just had a nasty breakup with their now-former lead singer Adam Gontier. There was a lot of drama and shit, but there were two important things this led to.
The first was Three Days Grace gaining their new lead singer Matt Walst, which of course culminated in the album Human earlier this year, and I will stand by my unpopular opinion that that album was fantastic and one of the best of 2015 so far, as well as one of the band's best albums in years.
The other was the forming of the band we'll be talking about today, Saint Asonia, a supergroup formed by Gontier alongside other members of popular post-grunge and modern rock acts, such as Finger Eleven and Staind.
Now, when I first heard of this big collaborative project, I was really excited. Said excitement only grew upon hearing the first two singles from the album, Better Place and Blow Me Wide Open, two of the best songs on the album.
So, when the album dropped earlier this morning, I knew I had to check it out.
And it was absolutely worth it.
I think the first major standout point about this album is Adam Gontier himself. His vocal performance on this album is absolutely on-point, maybe his best performance since Three Days Grace's One-X days. He's rough and angry on the more heavy tracks like Dying Slowly and of course the aforementioned Better Place, but there are quite a few moments on this album where he show some really genuine emotion (we'll get to those later). He's a really talented and passionate rock vocalist and it really shows here on this album.
But a great vocalist needs some good music backing him, and the instrumentation on this album is fantastic.
The guitar work is fantastic. Throughout this album, the guitars are chugging, heavy, and powerful, fitting the mood of most of the songs perfectly. Mike Mushok of Staind really stands out in both his riffs and his solos, especially the latter as the guitar solos make for some of the best moments on the album. From the quick shredding in Fairy Tale to the great conclusion of Happy Tragedy (which is otherwise admittedly one of the weaker tracks on the album. Still good, but a bit generic) to the incredibly powerful one on the closing track Leaving Minnesota, the guitar work on this album is absolutely stellar.
That's to say nothing of the bass work, which is actually really prominent throughout this album and really helps shape the album's heavy sound, unlike a lot of albums where the bass guitar is just kind of in the background. Corey Lowrey of the band Eye Empire shows some real talent on the bass guitar, and really helps sort of shape the album into what it is, especially on tracks like the fantastic King Of Nothing, another one of the best songs on the album.
Let's talk about some of the individual tracks on this record. I already mentioned the two singles Better Place and Blow Me Wide Open, which are two of the most aggressive songs here on this album and two of the best. This is post-grunge at its absolute finest, the vocals and instruments just coming to make something heavy and aggressive. It's pretty awesome.
But just because this album is aggressive most of the time doesn't mean it doesn't have its more stripped-back and slow moments. Let's talk about the track Waste My Time, possibly the best song on the entire album. A slow, acoustic guitar-driven love ballad with some of Gontier's most effective songwriting to date. Another great example is Trying To Catch Up With The World, a very stripped-back song dealing with fear and regret in a really powerful way, especially with Gontier's performance as he sounds almost on the verge of tears in the verses.
The mix of angsty, aggressive rock and slow, emotionally-driven ballads strikes a perfect balance, making this record an emotional experience while still being a fantastically heavy rock record.
If you're like me and actually really like a lot of post-grunge and mainstream rock, I guarantee you are likely to love this album. This is one of the best debut albums of the year so far, as Saint Asonia proves to be a great team and an extremely promising new artist, and I'm highly anticipating even more from them in the future.
BEST SONGS: Waste My Time, Trying To Catch Up With The World, Better Place, Blow Me Wide Open, King Of Nothing, Let Me Live My Life, Fairy Tale, Leaving Minnesota (especially that guitar solo... DAMN.)
WORST SONGS: Happy Tragedy
Final Score:
8/10
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