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Friday, March 29, 2024
The Observer

Sevendust seasons music scene with new album

Fresh off their first acoustic-based tour, Sevendust has released its fourth and most powerful album, Seasons. Lajon Witherspoon's powerful vocals and Clint Lowry's insatiable taste for hard and heavy guitar riffs add to a powerful and profound album. After the last two albums, Home and Animosity, were recorded in Massachusetts and Florida, Sevendust returned home to where it all started: Atlanta, Georgia. Here, they hooked up with producer/singer Butch Walker. Originally out of his father's garage, Walker helped them cut their demos for their first record deal. Now they meet again at Ruby Red Studios in Atlanta.Seasons, while not a breakthrough concept for Sevendust, delves back into the new sound created in Animosity, released two years earlier. Lajon Witherspoon, Sevendust's front man, proves that, in addition to being a great lyrical artist, he has vocals to lend to the heavy music behind him. A great deal of maturity in musical writing and lyrical content combine for one of their best albums since the band's creation. Sevendust's reputation for a high energy and powerful live performance come screaming out in this album. Opening up with "Disease," Sevendust seems to have taken a step back from its normally hard and heavy opener. This song has the weakest lyrics in the album, which form a rather weak opening for a lyrically powerful CD. Sevendust's first single, "Enemy" follows and opens up the flood-gates for an arsenal of powerful songs. "Enemy" is a way for drummer Morgan Rose to vent his frustrations and differences with Dez Fafara, Ex-Coal Chamber and current DevilDriver front man.The title track is "a song about desperation and desperate times," guitarist Clint Lowery said. The powerful lyrics sung by Witherspoon leave one with a deep consideration on how this song can be applied to anyone's life: "The seasons are way too cold, will we last another year?""Broken Down" and "Separate" reveal the more melodic and lyrically powerful band that has developed over the past few years, but leaves one with the feeling that Rose was not considerably challenged while sitting behind the drums. "Honesty" is also musically weaker, like the two previously mentioned, but with more meaningful and heartfelt lyrics.Sevendust completes the full spectrum of the album with their addition of "Skeleton Song," a slow but deep song that allows you to "lose yourself in a song again." Following the potent "Skeleton Song," Sevendust seems to slip a little with both "Disgrace" and "Burned Out." Both songs, although lyrically similar to the rest of the album, seem to lack the musical energy found throughout the rest of the album."Suffocate" steps up the speed and energy lost in the previous two songs and brings the album back to life, creating a perfect opening for the lyrically dominant song "Gone," where chills are sent with the line: "When I'm gone, don't fill the space that still belongs to me." A perfect closure to the album is the classic sounding "Face to Face." Here, Sevendust returns to their hard and heavy style that leaves listeners desiring more in albums to come. With mpeccable vocals, spine-tingling guitar riffs, bone-shaking bass lines and drumming that leaves you dizzy, Sevendust proves that they can overcome the changes in Seasons to bring about one of the most powerful rock albums this year.

Contact Matthew Shorts at Matthew.B.Shorts.1@nd.edu