Recently Reviewed:

LOVE LUST FAITH DREAMS
30 Seconds To Mars

Iron Man 3: Heroes Fall
Various Artists

The Neighbourhood
I Love You.

Shinedown’s “The Sound of Madness” is easily the best Shinedown record to date. The rockers are awesome starting with “Devour” and all of the ballads are excellent too, namely “What a Shame.” This is track for track miles ahead as far as songwriting goes over the previous two Shinedown albums. Both of those discs were good but there was always a sense of incompleteness to them that isn’t on this record. The album starts out hard, harsh and with the single “Devour”, probably Shinedown’s hardest single but also one of their best and continues that hardness into the title track “The Sound Of Madness.” Then a decent ballad comes on in “Second Chance” and “Cry for Help” and “The Crow & The Butterfly” follow. At this point in the record you realize that this is the most melodic Shinedown album to date and it really puts the music up another level. There’s not a bad track on this album and the only problem that the band has with this one is choosing which of the 12 songs on the disc get picked as singles because they are all worthy of being chosen. That’s actually not too big of a problem though because Shinedown’s live schedule is pretty much ridiculous so they could tour on five singles over the next two and a half years. One of the best rock records of the year and one of the best records of this year, Shinedown has created the record that can boost them up to another level as a rock band.