Poor ol’ Sevendust, none of the respect, all of the sales, cool guys, and a big hand in both nu-metal and, if you think about it, the more melodic bits of everybody’s metalcore albums. Next finds the band ditching their management, switching a guitarist, losing their record deal and self-producing. And what they’ve come up with is astonishingly brave, the band walking into critical pitfalls, consequences be damned. I mean, a bunch of nu-metal moves from 1999 are in here. ‘Desertion’ is like a cross between Coal Chamber and Mudvayne. Then there’s mid-years Machine Head, all sorts of rhythmic swing and multi-layered shouts… But there’s also a complication and note-denseness that points to metalcore, but never too wildly. ‘Failure’ and ‘Silence’ however, are a whole bunch of what Sevendust do best, grooving with unbelievable heavy metal grease, Lajon doing his patented black guy/Patton phrasings and melodies while the band cooks it raw. It’s weird that for a band that has done pretty well for themselves, we gotta call them under-rated – under-respected by the underground maybe – but that’s what Sevendust are. They don’t turn in duds, and there’s always a lot going on, weird guitar textures, cavernous atmospheres, killer drum fills, vocal nuttiness. But then hey, back to that pitfall thing, they break into some of the shamelessly sweetest choruses in the biz (highlight: ‘Never’), ballads even, and weirdly, these are what draw me back, and not the down-tuned crunchy Korn bits.