Shinedown
Threat To Survival

"Threat To Survival" is the fifth studio album by the American band Shinedown, released on September 18, 2015, by Atlantic Records. "Threat To Survival" is the album that definitively marks the change in genre, style, and everything else by Shinedown. It's practically the end of Shinedown, or rather the Shinedown of the first two/three albums considered great albums by yours truly. Even with "Amaryllis", the second to last album in terms of time dated 2012, one could feel a change in style although not yet so pronounced, in this "Threat To Survival" the point of no return was reached. Yet the album doesn’t start that bad.

"Asking For It", the big single "Cut The Cord" with a children's choir that the group likes so much (remember "Bully"?), and "State Of My Head" are three respectable tracks. The anger of the past is gone, in fact, it hasn’t been there since "Sound Of Madness" of 2008, but that's okay, they are still tracks that flow easily and also remain imprinted in the listener’s mind. If it had been a three-song EP, everything would have gone smoothly, too bad there are 7 more tracks. And for me, this is where the emptiness begins. All songs that feel like filler, with a fairly similar structure in the verses and the chorus trying to be as radio-friendly as possible so they can be sung at the top of the lungs by the (new) fans at concerts. The lowest point of the album in my opinion is "Think As Thieves", personally the worst song ever released from these four guys’ discography. "Black Cadillac" lifts our spirits a bit but not by much because it closes with "Misfits", one of those tracks I described a few lines above.

If you're a fan of pop rock with a bit of gritty distortion, like Nickleback to say (and I don't mean to be offensive towards them, I don't mind that type of songs as long as they're decent!), you'll probably like this album. But if you're an old-school Shinedown fan (like yours truly) and you've already started to turn up your nose at "Amaryllis", avoid this album. I'm not absolutely against changes in direction by bands, on the contrary, I like to see how people can reinvent themselves, as long as they do it well. And here, in my opinion, they didn’t succeed. It's a shame, I would have just liked to see them live in their heyday.

P.S. It’s quite funny to see the group on their Facebook page trying to defend this change in style by posting comments from fans who defend them. Dear Shinedown, this means that deep down, even you are not convinced of what you have done, otherwise, you wouldn’t try so hard to justify what has been done.