Shinedown Strikes a Vicious Chord In Its Return To the Rock Arena

Florida's Shinedown can be held responsible for producing music that sounds incredible booming from large stadiums. You'd need that air space to allow guitarist Jasin Todd's burly playing to reach maximum intensity. "Cut The Cord" follows in the electrifying crank it to the rafters work ethic. This outing the guys follow one chord in whatever fang heightened trajectory it might choose to go in. "Cut The Cord" demonstrates Shinedown does stripped down rock and soundtrack worthy epics like "Diamond Eyes" equally well. I have to admit the words leave me in a hard to escape haze. Firstly "freedom" plays an integral role in the group chanting. Secondly head tonsil flasher Brent Smith goes on and on about himself at great length. Exhibit A? "Let me tell you, I'm vicious, not pass-aggressive." Exhibit B? "I'm gonna make it rain, so ring the bell." How very talented of him. Much space gets lent to out and out self-analysis in this vein. What to make of "Now victory is all you need. So cultivate and plant the seed. Hold your breath and count to ten, just count to ten." Not much on the deep meaning tip. That's to the advantage of Shinedown die-hards who, I'm guessing aren't craving much deep thinking with their indescribably stout Florida fist waving. Mission accomplished from the band's end. "Diamond Eyes" gave us chord shifting variation. You could easily say it was highly textured, multi-dimensional guilty pleasure of the highest caliber. "Cut The Cord" gives the faithful exactly what they hunger for. I advise you bring a hefty napkin because Shinedown ladles out goodness in massive quantities. Barry Kerch knows his drums very well. His sticks possess a potency few in his league can match. That transfers very well to this song. You won't hear him skittering about like a demon possessed. Carefully calibrated vim and vigor pushes him along to remarkable effect. Zach Myers has the skills to make his guitar take on a resoundingly in your face life of its own. Looking at the back catalog I take pleasure in observing how different "Cut The Chord" sounds in the eardrums compared to, say, "If You Only Knew". Finesse ruled the mixing boards there. "Cut The Cord" chucks finesse out the window in favor of macho aggressive sing along choral refrain mixed in with Brent striking any bombastic verbal pose he can come up with. I'm not disappointed Shinedown didn't get hyper creative in chord selection. There are instances where a quality burger beats filet mignon. "Cut The Cord" tastes like pure sirloin to me. The cut sticks to your ribs which signals great news to anyone wanting to emphatically get their aggression out.