SEVENDUST GET READY TO MAKE THE ALBUM OF THEIR CAREER

Or at least we hope. As Axl pointed out to me one time, it’s not that Sevendust have managed to outlast their nu-metal peers and persevere through hard times; even terrible bands like Static X and Dope have done that. It’s that Sevendust have somehow managed to avoid the critical backlash that was bestowed upon nearly everyone else from their era of metal. Maybe it’s because they’re a cut above most of those bands, because they’re so fucking great live, or because they never reached the level of popularity and/or ridiculousness of many of those bands; I think it’s all of the above. Even after a string of 3 very mediocre and rushed albums written without musical mastermind Clint Lowery in the band, Sevendust have somehow managed to retain their integrity through it all.

But now Clint is back in the band, and they’re recording their first album since early 2007’s Chapter VII: Hope & Sorrow, with producer Johnny K behind the boards. There’s a lot of anticipation, but there’s also a ton of pressure.

No disrespect to Clint’s fill-in Sonny Mayo who did a fine job live, but Clint Lowery could write better riffs and more complete songs whilst taking a dump than Sonny Mayo did on any of the three records in which he participated. As for John Connolly, he always struck me as more of a “riffs guy” than a “songs guy”… which is fine, so long as you have someone else there to piece it all together, which Mayo certainly wasn’t. So there’s a lot of hope and anticipation that this forthcoming record will be the best the band has released in sometime. But on the other side of it, now that Clint’s back there’s also a lot of pressure; can they deliver? Will the album be up to snuff?

As for Johnny K, the guy’s produced some albums I absolutely loathe. But sonically he’s unfuckwithable, and he definitely seems like a “songs guy” too… so perhaps the band is trying to get back to what they were doing on Animosity and Seasons which would be absolutely A-ok with this guy right here. Apparently the band did pre-production and wrote with Clint’s brother Corey, who played with him in Dark New Day as well as being a one-time member of Life of Agony, Stuck Mojo, and Stereomud. I’m not sure how that will manifest itself in the final product, but it’s interesting to note.

I’m optimistic the band can do something good, or at the very least better than the last 3 records (Next, Alpha and the aforementioned Hope & Sorrow). The Clint-written Dark New Day album was a gem, as was his Hello Demons… Meet Skeletons solo record released last year. The guy is just a great songwriter, plain and simple, and it turns out he can solo his balls off too (as he did on the DND record). From the second of two studio reports Clint’s posted on the Webernets, it would seem that all is dandy in the Sevendust camp and everyone is getting along. The record is tentatively going to be released in early 2010… I anxiously await.

Check out the Day 2 studio update below in which you get to see the studio environs, and then below it watch the band jam out to some Van Halen in the Day 3 update.

-VN