Maximum Metal Rating Legend

Three Days Grace Transit Of Venus Company: RCA Release: 2012 Genre: Hard Rock Reviewer: EC

Miles better than the other mall ilk

Either I am just getting old or somehow yearning for days of youth. Bands like Saosin, Papa Roach and Rise Against are oddly appealing to me now more than ever. Is it the sterile production? Maybe the lack of dungeons and dragons lyrics? Either way my thirty six year old self finds this stuff rather interesting. Chalk Three Days Grace as an outline of what and what not to do if you are a modern rock band.

Three Days Grace is miles better than the other mall ilk permeating Hot Topic. "Transit Of Venus" is the fourth record thus far and follows the same trek of commercial modern rock as previous entries. The album is produced by Don Gilmore (Linkin Park, Good Charlotte) at Revolution Studios in Toronto, a convenient choice considering the band is Canadian. This album is the first of the band's career to come by way of RCA. The previous albums were on RCA subsidiary Jive Records.

The band has always sort of been metal by association. The guys have been on the road with the likes of Avenged Sevenfold and recently played the Mayhem tour with Bullet For My Valentine, Escape The Fate and Seether. That heavy aspect can clearly be heard on a handful of cuts here. I really love the heavier distortion on "Chalk Outline", a song with electronics galore but still aggressive like an Egypt Central or Hero The Villain. I really hear today's Papa Roach sounds on "Operate", another heavier number that builds to a rock sing along chorus. My favorite of the bunch is the intro song "Sign Of The Times, a slower track that winds up like a clock until it alarmingly kicks into full throttle.

Not everything is so perfect though. This record has tons of filler and sappy pop songs that I just despise. "The High Road" is like something 30 Seconds To Mars would do. Same for "Time That Remains" and occasionally the lyrics drift into a nerdy Taylor Swift sort of poetic nonsense. I mean who writes "Feed off me like a vulture on a deer hit by a car"? That is really sorry songwriting in my humble opinion.

"Transit To Venus" does a ton right but a fair fourth that is just utter nonsense. I wish the band would just commit to an album of solid and intense cuts. I guess a batch of fifteen solid cuts can be culled from the band's discography. That isn't a bad deal considering this is a Billboard band from Canada and I am still play listing these guys even with the plethora of metal at hand.