ALBUM REVIEW: Outsider – Three Days Grace

To be an outsider is to be a person who does not belong to a particular organisation, profession, or culture. To be an outsider is to be the odd one out, to be the one looking through the window from the outside, never entering through the door. Alternatively, to be an outsider is to be someone will little chance of success, the underdog of the game at hand, the one you’ll bet on in moments of desperation. It’s both ironic and apt then that the title of Canadian alt-rockers THREE DAYS GRACE‘s sixth studio album is Outsider. Having always been a band on the peripheral of alt-rock’s flag-bearers, forever in the shadow of their peers such as NICKLEBACK, BREAKING BENJAMIN, and PAPA ROACH, THREE DAYS GRACE have always been outsiders of their scene and yet they’ve also doubled up as the underdog outsiders of the mainstream invasion, having broken into the Billboard 200’s Top 5 several times.

They’re outsiders in more ways than one, and on Outsider, THREE DAYS GRACE prove they’ll never be anything but, both sonically and thematically. Three years removed from the alt-metal escapades of the much-unloved Human, Outsider sees the band revaluate and remap their sound, retracing their steps and relearning their sounds to create a collection of songs that are far more rooted in the reviving post-grunge movement, polished off with that mid-noughties alt-rock sheen that catapulted the band to new heights way back in 2006 on their breakthrough One-X. Teaming up with producers Gavin Brown and Howard Benso, engineer Mike Plotnikoff, and mixer Chris Lord-Alge, Outsider is the first time since One-X that THREE DAYS GRACE have recorded with this team and that’s where much of the magic of the revitalised sound comes.

Whereas Human was new vocalist Matt Walst’s flailing attempt at stepping into founding member and departed frontman Adam Gontier’s shoes, Outsider from its opening moments on Right Left Wrong, is a defining performance from the vocalist who has finally hit the ground running, delivering a solid set of vocal cuts that sound both painstakingly similar to Gontier’s mid-noughties range as much as they sound undeniably fresh.

Embracing electronica and twisting it up in a tornado of post-grunge emotions and alt-rock riffs, THREE DAYS GRACE have evolved their sonic palate, returning to the band what Human stole from them: their ability to pen songs that appeal as much to die-hard alt-rockers as they do chart-music consumers. The arena-driven chorus-heavy one-two attack of I Am An Outsider and Infra-Red are two of the finest songs the band have penned in years, blurring the lines between the industrial crunch of alt-rock with the lung-busting sing-alongs a pop-rock crossover makes their bread and butter on. Infra-Red rides a riff so infectious the World Health Organisation may issue a warning over it, making way for a chorus that has you singing your heart out.

Whilst much of Outsider is a bonafide set of bangers from a band who have risen and fallen more than the Roman Empire, there are tracks that feel inexplicably unfinished, as if the song is built up, bubbling up to something bigger that never comes, it simply ends and moves on. The darkening depths of the post-grunge Love Me Or Leave Me builds and builds and builds, hinting evermore at a chorus the size of the big bang and yet it never quite explodes, instead fizzling out in a repetitive mess.

In a cultural landscape where mental health in music is moving away from its status as a taboo subject and becoming something in which musicians can talk about comfortably without prejudice, Outsider is a vulnerable window inside of a band who have always struggled with their feelings, spilling them into our ears often. It’s what sets this record apart from other alt-rock outfits right now, whereas much of their peers are focusing on feel-good party anthems, THREE DAYS GRACE give us a masterclass in coming to terms with the well of emotions that lay inside of us.

For the first time in twelve years, THREE DAYS GRACE sound like a band who deserve to be your outsider bet, a band who deserve to have their title as Canada’s resident underdogs returned.

Rating: 8/10

Outsider is set for release on March 9th via Music For Nations.

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