Right, the details first: “Devour” is the first single off Shinedown’s third album The Sound of Madness; it’s a step down a heavier path than their previous efforts (remember the instantly forgettable classic that was “Save Me”?), it’s produced by Rob Cavallo (where to start? Green Day, MCR, all them lot) and it’s as subtle as being anally invaded by a day-glo concrete dinosaur wearing an electric condom.
Blimey, “Devour” is big. It’s big and loud. It’s big, loud and completely American. I mean, it’s so big, loud, American, testosteroned, blandly alternative, amusingly earnest and self-confident it would be perfect for, say, American Wrestling; impressively butch yet simple enough for some kind of computerised sport sim, perhaps.
Yeah, obviously I’m cheating here: “Devour” is already penned in for use by Madden 09, it’s the third(!) of Shinedown’s songs to be used as the soundtrack to grown men in leotards pretending to fight each other and ESPN (damn the man, kids!) are using it for their baseball coverage (no, me neither; maybe for the bits when the fat umpire shouts at the fat manager) and it’s exactly how you’d expect a song used as such to sound. Power riffs! Chugging bits! Running along a corridor bridges! Ordered riot!
Soundgarden used to use a similar guitar sound to Shinedown, but they cunningly welded it to interesting, original songs, the cheating twisters. “Devour” is boring. It’s for those clean metal guys that look in the mirror and see a maverick, an outlaw, and then tuck their pony-tail under their collar before popping down the polling station to vote Tory.
Tidy-bearded metal: gives me the willies.
Of course, “Devour” might just be the most calculated song off a stormer of an album - after all, it is undoubtably a fucking big bugger and, like all the best singles, it’s in and out faster than John Holmes on a come-down - but I rather doubt it: they did write “Save Me” after all.
And - and! - I’ll tell you what bothers me most: I have a terrible feeling my eldest sister would really rather quite like Shinedown, and she’s exactly the kind of ex-punk now middle-class headmistress I fear the most, who, after a bottle of rosé and a night in, still thinks she knows… despite actually preferring Heart FM when alone in the car.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: alternative, Devour, metal, post-grunge, rock, Shinedown
