Sevendust: Kill The Flaw - 11 Tracks Reviewed & Ranked

Rating: ˜…˜…˜…˜… Somewhere along the way, the idea of a band writing something that could intentionally be classified as €˜radio rock€™ became tantamount to the antichrist. Granted some do it better than others, and the overly-poppy likes of Seether€™s recent output is definitely far more opaque when it comes to wanting to fill arenas versus simply cashing in as much as possible, but Sevendust have always stayed on the right side of that divide. More than ever on Kill the Flaw, you have a group that know this formula better than the competition. Their secret weapon has always been the multi vocal-attack of Lajon Witherspoon and Clint Lowery, throwing out soaring clean harmonies alongside more guttural-sounding passages, biting lyrical delivery and staccato sections. Such a well-rounded and immediately appealing sensibility routinely puts off the more €˜hardcore€™ metal crowd, but to have such a close-minded attitude misses out on many of the genre€™s base staples that can be so much fun; that of hugely infectious choruses, raucous string-stretching solos and chunky guitar tones thundering underneath. When it€™s done well, the €˜radio rock€™ formula is exactly that; a mass-produced serum for mass appeal, and one I€™d recommend everyone try out. In the spirit of providing something a little different than the standard review (and something I did on both Mark Tremonti€™s new album and the recent Metal Allegiance supergroup) I€™ll stick to ranking the album and reviewing each track individually, so please let me know in the comments what your favourites are, and if you€™d swap any around.

11. Chop

The weirdest (and most outstanding) intro on the whole album, it€™s a real Southern-fried guitar line that initially makes you think of guys like Black Stone Cherry or Maylene & The Sons of Disaster, before giving way to a dynamic distorted twist on its core riff. A solid reversal of expectations brings in one of Witherspoon€™s best and most powerfully-delivered chorus lines on the whole album. This experimental nature transfers into a really cool refrain later in the track too, where twin guitarists Clint Lowery and John Connolly match up their chugging E strings. It's a fairly compressed sound but should make for a great crowd participation segment live, and still, a more progressive picking pattern that segues right back into that chorus jumps in before things get too stale. All-round it's the nu-metal crunch paired with Lajon's angelic tones that give Sevendust a really definable presence no matter the pace, and personally I'd love to see more of this left-turn approach in the future.