Days Of The New: Days Of The New

Few commercially viable subgenres sound as creatively tired as Alice In Chains-style dirge-rock, a sound marked by plodding arrangements and an intolerable vocal technique that's equal parts bleating and groaning. It's hard enough to stomach when Alice In Chains does it, but imitators such as Creed and Days Of The New have even less of an excuse: Their music isn't just a ponderous snore, it's a derivative ponderous snore. Both Creed and Days Of The New now face the daunting task of recapturing the success of their awful but phenomenally successful debut albums, and it's interesting to witness their suddenly diverging paths. Creed's new single is one of the most overblown bits of self-parody in recent history, a hackneyed mixture of tortured over-emotiveness and emotionally empty posturing. But a funny thing is going on with Days Of The New: All the band members are gone—it's now just 20-year-old singer-guitarist Travis Meeks—and he actually takes stylistic risks on his new album. Sure, the wheezy vocals remain an unforgivable liability, and the overall tone rarely strays from the Alice In Chains/Stone Temple Pilots/Pearl Jam axis, but Meeks actually dares to rework the formula with an assortment of acoustic instruments and inventive arrangements. The result lends a much-needed brightness to what would otherwise be an excruciating batch of dirges, and it even results in a few outright strong tracks—particularly the single "Enemy," which cannily finds a way to incorporate strings, horns, and a dance beat in a way that won't alienate Days' fans. It's a smart, risky move, and while it doesn't rescue the album from Meeks' plodding, pretentious tendencies (and terrible, windy junk like "Provider"), it moves him to the head of an otherwise unexceptional class.