![]() "Lady So Divine" is Shinedown's longest song to date, being just over seven minutes long. It is definitely the greatest song on the album. During the bridge when he sings, "The hardest question to answer is why," he does it with such intensity that chills ran through my spine when I heard it. It also is one of Brent Smith's strongest moments on either of Shinedown's first two albums. The entire song is performed with this gloom that plays into the lyrics well. The song opens with a simple yet satisfying bass line from Brad Stewart, which is immediately followed by eerie notes on the guitar from Jasin Todd. These two songs in specific were weaker points on the album, but were made up by the fact that the rest of the LP had a great level of variety.Ī couple of songs that stand out the most on this album are "Save Me" and "Lady So Divine." The former was the chart topping single from the album and it didn't reach the top for no reason. Songs like "I Dare You" and "Begin Again" followed the exact same template that the majority of the songs on Shinedown's first album did, therefore giving it that same feeling of sameness. It is possible to say that they were too reminiscent. There were a few songs on this album that were reminiscent of Leave A Whisper. The intro of the song does its job and grabs your attention, so you can hear Brent Smith belt his powerful vocals. ambiance, music, etc.) so it's a little dull, but it sets the tone for the album and leads right into "Heroes." There's nothing really noteworthy about the first real song on the album except for the fact that it has some of Brad Stewart's best work on the album. This album begins with an all spoken track called "The Dream." It has nothing to back it up (i.e. The lyrics had a lot more depth to them and all of the musicians - Brent Smith (vocals), Jasin Todd (guitar), Barry Kerch (drums), and Brad Stewart (bass) - proved that they had a lot more talent than they were letting us hear in their first release. Us and Them still had the cliché hard rock sound that haunted the early to mid 2000s, but overall production quality was much better and the album was definitely way more multifaceted than Leave A Whisper. Shinedown's 2005 release Us and Them fixed a lot of the problems that existed within the first record. "But you said this was a review for Us and Them, not Leave A Whisper." I'm getting to that. The production quality was subpar and it was, all in all, a musically weak album. This debut album wasn't bad, by any means, but it was very simplistic with not many differences between each song. However, I listened to the rest of the album and realized all 12 tracks sounded just like that. With a first listen to such a successful song, I found it to be a great tune with a hook that, for some reason, stayed in my head for weeks upon end. With the help of the single 45, it made its way to 53 on the Billboard Hot 200 chart. In the year of 2003, hard rock quartet Shinedown saw mild success with their debut release Leave A Whisper. Review Summary: Shinedown's Us and Them is a step up from the monotonous Leave A Whisper, but still leaves a lot to be desired.
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