Three Days Grace - Outsider

Three Days Grace

Outsider

2018

Spotify

Do you remember Three Days Grace? The band came to success in the early aughts with their self titled debut record and songs like "I Hate Everything About You". Looking back at some of these older band releasing new music it reminds you how weird and awkward the early 2000s were for rock with emo splintering off and Three Days Grace taking up more of a, metal-lite stance" The band are going to sound a hell of a lot different this time around because gone is former singer Adam replaced by Matt Waist who sounds like a amalgam of everyone in Linkin Park. The problem with this kind of rock is that it takes itself so serious that there is no room for lift or brightness, just a constat barrage of wailing guitars and pounding drums. The sentiments, band after band and album after album are exactly the same: dark and brooding. Yet none of these bands bring anything new to the scene or try to do something different, it is rock by number from start to finish. Even some of the guitar lines feel like you've heard them a million times not to mention the acoustic opening of "Nothing to Lose But You" being one of the most on the nose things I've heard in awhile. "Me Against You" is laughable in it's cursing and anger. I don't know what these middle aged white dudes are so angry about, but they sure to have a whole hell of a lot bubbling up under there. The problem is they can't find any real connection here, all their sentiments are so base and so basic that they make little sense and offer almost no new ideas on the topic. Even if this record was top 40 ready, it's not, the hooks aren't even close to something that could get a single spin on the radio today. 

Maybe I am just nuts and there is this huge group Three Days Grace fans out there clamoring for a record, or maybe there is just enough to keep the band going, but who still listens to this? I am racking my brain to think of where this kind of music could play, but it just is not out there. Even the nostalgia element doesn't really apply to these guys, because it was all kind of goofy and over blown in the first place. To have nostalgia work for you you need to have some element of kitsch, on Outsider there is absolutely zero. "The New Real" tries to take on the money and fame obsessed culture but then throws in a couple "gangster wannabe" type phrases just to make it feel even more out of touch than it already did. With this big guitar sound you would expect a solid pace and some faster songs, but you'd be totally wrong. Instead of getting things cooking they just rely on these crawling songs that a big but totally weightless. This record is all bluster and no bite, they are trying to say a whole lot but failing to do so track after track. There are no surprises to discover on Outsider not even a change besides a slightly different vocal, not that you would really even notice. Outsider more than anything simply is not good, behind the times are a weak offering from a band that needs to say something bold to get noticed. 

2.1 out of 10