The new era of Godsmack, based on 'When Legends Rise', is showing the legs to take them another twenty-three years.
The 2015 album '1000HP' gave a sense of a shift away from Metal to a more Hard Rock vibe. Although this was the sixth Godsmack album, this is the one that started to really catch the UK market. The seventh album, 'When Legends Rise', completes this shift and takes us to a new, mature era for Godsmack.
The album opens with the title track, and it reminds us all that this is a really proficient band who are intent on blowing it out of the water, as it's a hard driving Rock song with slightly grungy roots. Sully Erna makes no bones that he writes from experience, and he is willing to share the darkness. 'Bulletproof' is a song we can all relate to, about the times we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to others, and they turn on you. Each time we grow a little harder, and the wall we put around ourselves becomes harder to penetrate.
Erna puts his money where his mouth is, as through his work with C.A.T.S he's brought some teens to supply the vocals on 'Unforgettable', and this towering powerhouse of a song becomes just that. We continue with this hard-driving theme with 'Every Part Of Me' (a song of unconditional love), and 'Take Me To The Edge'. The pace slows to the beautiful ballad 'Under Your Scars', which gives rein to Erna's extensive musical roots; it is soaring and heartbreakingly lovely.
Godsmack has been around since the nineties, and those early grungy Metal roots are still there, as heard in 'Some Day' and 'Eye Of The Storm', but there is a decidedly rockier edge in 'Just One Time' and 'Let It Out'. When bands have longevity there comes a turning point where they have to decide whether to continue with the tried and true, or acknowledge that both they and their fans have matured musically, and trust that the fans will come along with them. Godsmack have made that choice, and the new era of Godsmack, based on 'When Legends Rise', is showing the legs to take them another twenty-three years.
Helen Bradley Owers
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