Sevendust - All I See Is War

Since their self-titled debut in 1997, Sevendust have been one of the stronger and more consistent figures of alternative metal and nu metal, blending Lajon Witherspoon’s smoothly delivered clean singing with fierce shouted vocals and even some more-than-compitent growls backed by some of the genre’s most thunderous bass-heavy grooves. Over the course of the past decade or so, the nu metal punchiness of the band’s sound has fluctuated in its balance with their more sweetly melodic side, never quite as prominent as it was on their first three albums. Their previous album, Kill the Flaw, featured a few potent doses of it, and its predecessor, Black out the Sun, added it somewhat sporadically but tastefully in bursts. But for the length of their double-digit studio album catalog, Sevendust hasn’t ever really strayed all too far from what’s worked for them. All I See Is War, however, takes a sharper turn for the band than any they ever have taken, which isn’t saying much, and it’s not a very drastic departure for them either. But this is about as much of a curveball as Sevendust have ever given their fans, and it’s probably not a departure many fans were hoping for. Stepping back into more of a hard rock style on a number of tracks, still stringing their familiar alternative metal sound through the track listing, the most noticeable difference on All I See Is War is the near absence of the powerful grooves that provided highlights to the band’s sound across albums past. What it reveals is how crucial those moments have been on their recent albums and how integral it is as apart of their sound, because this is the least unique the band have ever sounded.

The first track, “Dirty”, is a classic example of modern Sevendust: some gritty double-bass-followed guitar grooves and a welcoming vocal melody. “God Bites His Tongue” is a formidable continuation of the steady intensity set by the first track too.

While the groove is there on other songs like “Unforgiven”, and “The Truth”, it isn’t in concentrations quite potent enough or formats original enough to feel fresh for Sevendust. Songs like “Medicated”, “Moments”, “Descend”, “Sickness”, and “Life Deceives You” also take the band’s more clean-cut, alternative metal approach a bit too mechanically and come up a bit too dry.

The song “Cheers”, though, is another well-blended mix of tougher groove, some dissonant guitars, and Witherspoon’s gruffer singing, and the song “Risen”, following immediately afterward is a tight double-bass-filled riffer that sounds like it would belong on Alpha, almost nostalgic-sounding at this point, definitely a needed couple of highlights for the album. Again, the album isn’t THAT much of stylistic deviation form the norm for Sevendust, the balance they’ve wielded is just shifted farther to one side this time and these songs were really necessary in keeping that grasp on the heavier side of their sound and not slipping down the bad rabbit hole of radio rock.

The album’s alternative rock ballad of sorts, “Not Original” is probably the weakest moment on the album for its lifeless, typical 2000’s Hot Topic alt band delivery. It’s not the kind of ballad Sevendust excell at, if anyone really excels at it, because it’s just such a generic song type. I was immediately able to link it to a few of Linkin Park’s, Pillar’s, Shinedown’s and other sorts of bands’ weaker ballads. The slightly more heavily backed “Life Deceives You” kind of falls in the same bucket of unflattery as well, unfortunately, formulaic and not something Sevendust needed to waste their time with at all.

Fortunately, All I See Is War isn’t all that big of a blunder for Sevendust, but it is a noticeable misstep nonetheless, and one that should be addressed lest the band tend towards the same boring cliché radio butt rock that so many of their attention-starved contemporaries have gravitated toward in hopes of reinvigorating their careers. Perhaps Sevendust underestimate (or I overestimate) their fan base’s appreciation for their maintained uniqueness in their genre. I personally would hate to see a bastion of heaviness within the genre like them succumb to the deceitful lure of the radio or whatever equivalent playlist Spotify has. If they feel like they need to branch off, I just hope they put a little bit more of a conscious effort in to not just follow the crowd they’ve always led.