The third studio album from Canadian arena rockers
Three Days Grace
treads familiar ground, presenting 12 slabs of the kind of reliable, accessible and serviceable hard rock that will always have an audience. 2006's
One-X
dealt heavily with vocalist
Adam Gontier
's personal demons, a theme that continues on
Life Starts Now
, albeit with a hint of sunlight. With a sound that lands somewhere in between
Breaking Benjamin
,
Collective Soul
, and
Godsmack
, (
Gontier
sounds like a less volatile
Trent Reznor
)
treats the well-worn
metal
themes of anger, isolation, heartache, and redemption with the kind of begrudging respect they deserve, pumping out a competent flurry of fist-bump anthems (
"Break,"
"Bully"
) and world-weary, midtempo rockers (
"World So Cold,"
"Last to Know"
that are so painfully earnest that one can almost hear director
Michael Bay
pitching them to the studio for inclusion on the soundtracks for his next ten
Transformers
sequels. ~ James Christopher Monger