Life Starts Now for Three Days Grace

Post-grunge was society’s way of dealing with all of the raw angst that grunge didn’t have the chance to deal with... because it died. Three Days Grace’s self-titled 2003 debut was hailed as flawless by critics, celebrated by moshing metal-heads, and adored by middle-schoolers with a little too much hatred for their parents. To be fair, Three Days Grace was consistent from track to track with emotional, relatable lyrics and tight guitar-work. With emo anthems like “Just Like You” and “I Hate Everything About You,” how can you go wrong?

Three Days Grace’s sophomore effort, One-X was a solid follow-up according to the reviews and displayed a polished sound that was just as angry and powerful as before with such headbangers as “Riot” and “Animal I Have Become.” Three Days Grace experimented on this album with lower tempos and more variety in the dynamics, something they had done particularly well.

Unfortunately, with their follow up Life Starts Now, Three Days Grace’s critics aren’t as forgiving when they saw that the band has a serious case of the Linkin Park. You know, those bands who gained popularity with the tween crowds in the early 2000s who can’t seem to write a single happy song.

The first track on Life Starts Now, “Bitter Taste,” has traditional Three Days Grace style with its strong chorus and overall anger; makes one wonder when lead singer Adam Gontier is going to find someone who doesn’t hurt his fragile heart. Songs like “Goin Down”, “World So Cold”, and “Life Starts Now” are really just space-fillers that don’t seem to contribute much of anything. It’s not hard to predict what their subject nature are—heartbreak and anger.

The first single, “Break” is your classic Three Days Grace which would just be a song about advocating angsty preteen rebellion. The first half of the song is fine but the line “At night I feel like a vampire” made the rest of the song unlistenable on principle.

Songs like “Lost in You”, “The Good Life”, and “No More” are musical contradictions whose lyrics don’t really match up with the songs too well with the latter leaving the audience wonder just how much pain one can actually write about.

“Last to Know” is the album’s magnum opus with a lovely piano intro leading slowly into an electric interlude. Here, Gontier shows his true voice and ability with some lovely falsetto moments.

Overall the album was good and what is expected from Three Days Grace, but it still leaves one to start to wonder how long Adam Gontier can hate life for. Who is his audience? Those stuck in permanent angst? When Three Days Grace mature in content? But then again, I guess if you cant vocalize your frustration in music, where can you do it?

Can't think of a good pun for Life starts now. Maybe... wow now that this review is done, Life starts now. Lame.

Race to Witch Mountain

You may be asking yourself "Why, Dylan? Why?"

Well I came back to my Dad's house this weekend and I catch him and his girlfriend watching it because for some reason, they rented it. I'm not going to review the whole movie, just say some of the thoughts I had.

First, it's the story about two aliens who crash land on earth that look surprisingly like Hitler's Youth and talk with painfully proper English. You know, the kind that we would WANT our kids to learn and speak. Anyway, they land in Vegas since all aliens crash land in the mid-west and get in Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's cab. Long story short, they have to get back to their ship at Witch Mountain and get home.

So some stereotypes:
1. Aliens can assume the forms of humans (if they aren't already appearing as such).
2. Aliens have way more advanced technology and intelligence (since they have not only mastered long-distance space-travel but also know how to utilize their brains so they can do nutty stuff like telekinesis).
3. The government when faced with a flux of aliens no matter how large or small will do anything in it's power and seemingly unlimited resources to track, hunt, capture, and slice open the aliens from orifice to orifice to see what kind of green goo oozes from their bellies.
4. The government has unlimited resources and infinite nameless soldiers and guys in white lab coats.
5. Mankind is always in jeopardy and it takes not the cooperative effort of every human on the planet, but the reckless persistence of one seemingly ordinary and preposterously buff super-action hero.

Suffice it to say, I felt like I was watching the same Disney alien movie that had been packaged in different wrapping. I'm just tired of these alien movies that depict the government as a crazy black-suit organization that wants to cut up whatever it can find. I would think that the good doctor with a scalpel standind over the sedated alien (who I assume has a PhD in something related to space, aliens, or medicine) would think to himself, "Why don't we save the cutting for after we ask the aliens how to travel long distances in space and use telekinesis?"

I like to think that Obama would not only sit down to have a rational talk with the aliens, but offer them jobs and healthcare as well.

Sci-Fi Crimes

Been in the room all day so I haven't really experienced much of the outside world and this philosophy essay sucks so I have nothing to contribute today.

So ill give you something ive already written: my review of Chevelle's new Sci-Fi Crimes cd. It was fine.


At the end of the 90s came a fun little music genre called post-grunge and emerging out of that juncture has been some of 2000’s most popular bands of the 21st century. In 2002 we all remember shamelessly rocking out to Chevelle’s “Send the Pain Below” and “the Red” off of their better-known second album “Wonder What’s Next.” Since then, Chevelle has all but dropped off of the radar for most of the causal mainstream listeners.

“Sci-Fi Crimes,” the Illinois trio’s fifth studio album has been met with a wave of endearing reviews from all wakes. The reviews hail this album as the greatest one to date and hopefully the end of their gradual decline into obscurity as the record sales has been showing.

All-in-all, “Sci-Fi Crimes” is a great album. It is a fantastic show case of the bands thick and rhythmic sound, the band’s mastery at catchy choruses, and lead singer Pete Loeffler’s soaring vocals. Personally, from the opening track, “Sleep Apnea,” I could immediately sense what wasn’t a new sound from Chevelle, but a definite mood change due to a less morose lyrical style. The bass and riff-heavy opener reminded me exactly of what I love about this band—a no-holds-barred approach to awesome music.

I have to qualify my use of the word “fantastic” by saying that “Sci-Fi Crimes” is not Chevelle’s best, nor is it what will bring the band back to the mainstream. It’s not bad but it’s not what the critics are making it out to be. Other than a few stunning tracks like the all-acoustic “Highland’s Aspiration” and the aerial “Shameful Metaphors,” the album is littered by cautious tracks like “This Circus” and “Mexican Sun.”

Even their current single, “Jars” which has peaked at number six on the Billboard 200 is definitely not my choice for their first single. Don’t get me wrong, the single is great and I recommend it for new listeners and people trying to give their friends a good idea of what Chevelle sounds like. With a great hook in the chorus and a pertinent message for the time about going green (Put into jars/We'll save this Earth), it is a great candidate for the single and it has apparently done well. Simply said, it isn’t the most significant or best song.

I would say more about the lyrics but Loeffler’s abundant use of non-sequiturs entirely over-saturates the entire album with topics that range from going green to alien abductions and the guy who stole Chevelle’s stuff in 2007. To say the lyrics are hard to understand would be an understatement.

“Sci-Fi Crimes” neither adds greatness nor shows weakness in Chevelle’s ability as performers. Unlike a lot of album’s I’ve heard lately, this album isn’t a futile attempt at re-inventing their sound to keep listeners interested—it’s merely a sticking to a working formula that doesn’t make this feel like an album full of B-sides. It’s really good. Go buy it.