"The 'Kryptonite' guys follow up thier triple platinum debut album."
Best Tracks: When I'm Gone, Away From The Sun, Here Without You, Going Down In Flames
At the end of the last track "This Time" 3 Doors Down says "Don't go in/the same way that came out/the last time." Which is certainly a lesson that they've learned
from thier 3 million plus selling debut album "The Better Life". On thier debut album they spent the band spent most of thier time wallowing
in fear, hatred and suicide. With a few exceptions the album was both dreary and had very few moments where the band actually showcased thier talent.
With "Away From the Sun", the band's second release, 3 Doors Down has shown a much mature and less-threatening side to them which could only be found
on "Kryptonite" and "Be Like That" on "The Better Life". That's not to say that "Away" doesn't still have some of the hostility and anger that made "The Better Life"
so unlikeable. Lyrics such as "Sarah Yellin"'s "It's over/The old man is dead/Lying on the ground/With a bullet through his head." aren't exactly uplifting lyrics.
But a positive change in a band's perspective doesn't exactly mean that the album is going to be good. With all of "Away"'s positiveness it tends to slip into the land
of Creed and Nickleback's tired rock that has grown to be about as annoying as last year's Nu-Metal phase (best examples, "The Road I'm On", "Running Out Of Days" both sound
like they were cut-and-pasted directly from "My Own Prison"). They also have a tendency to make some of thier songs sound to much alike by using the same formula throughout
the album (i.e. Creed's "Weathered"). That tendency makes tracks like the hard, dark first single "When I'm Gone" and the string-laden "Here Without You" sound even
more prominent than had they been if this was a more diverse sounding album.
Regardless of thier mistakes, 3 Doors Down seem to be taking a step in the right direction and hopefully that will be more of a blessing than a curse for them. The album is much
better than thier sub-par debut and with a little better songwriting and diverseness they could become ten times better than the bands that they're compared to.
