Three Days Grace’s sound has evolved with each album it has released. The Canadian rock band’s fourth album “Transit of Venus,” which released Tuesday, is no exception.
The album stays true to the music Three Days Grace fans have come to know and love, pairing Adam Gontier’s impeccable vocals and piercing lyrics with resonating riffs from guitarist Barry Stock.
“Transit of Venus,” however, adds new flavor to the band’s music with an influx of new instrumentals and sound that gives the album a more produced quality. This can make the music seem less pure at times, but it still captures the band’s signature sound while also being something new and different from previous albums.
As the band has done well on each of its albums, “Transit of Venus” goes from riff-heavy metal songs such as “Operate” and album single “Chalk Outline,” to mellower songs focused more around their messages such as “Time That Remains.”
Per usual, the album features lyrics carved deep with the emotions of hardship. One example is the track “Happiness,” which traces back to Gontier’s battles with addiction, the theme that drove the band’s sophomore album “One-X.”
“Happiness straight from the bottle / When real life’s too hard to swallow,” Gontier shouts in the song’s chorus.
Three Days Grace is also known for its covers of songs such as Chris Isaak’s love ballad “Wicked Game” and the Fleetwood Mac classic “The Chain.” The band went one step further on this album, taking on the King of Pop with a cover of Michael Jackson’s “Give in To Me.” The band does a legend justice once again, making the song its own by giving it a whole new sound.
There is no shortage of lyrical quality on this album, but the album’s third track “The High Road” stands out. It can be inferred that Gontier is singing about a relationship gone wrong, with lyrics such as “There’s times I stayed alive for you / There’s times I would have died for you.”
The lyrics that end Gontier’s chorus resonate more than any others on the album: “I’ll do whatever it takes to be the mistake you can’t live without.”
Some Three Days Grace fans might be initially rebuffed by the increased impact of studio production on this album, but overall, it is another fantastic chapter to the band’s discography. If you enjoy the band’s music, you won’t want to live without this album.
Grade: A-
