Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 07/14/2009
When he was recording his debut album in 2006,
Chris Daughtry didn't have the time to assemble the real rock band he so desperately wanted to have, so it appeared under the band name
DAUGHTRY without featuring any of the musicians who later became part of the group. That's not the case with
Leave This Town,
DAUGHTRY's second record: all five members are glowering on the album cover, floating like specters over an abandoned Californian street. The five rockers serve as visual evidence that
DAUGHTRY is a band, not a person, and such reminders may be necessary because
Leave This Town doesn't differ much in feel or form from
DAUGHTRY. Overall,
Leave This Town isn't quite as studio slick as
DAUGHTRY, which was fueled by
Chris Daughtry's desire prove that he belonged in the big leagues; here, he's achieved that goal and he's happy to stay there as long as possible, giving the people what they want in the form of furrow-browed rockers and brooding power ballads, all saved from their self-conscious sobriety by arena-level hooks, hooks that come from
Daughtry and a variety of co-writers including
Ben Moody and
Nickelback's
Chad Kroeger.
Daughtry brings these big hooks down to human scale, injecting warmth into his phrasing.
DAUGHTRY have no desire to make anything other than good, basic, black-and-white modern rock and they do so efficiently on
Leave This Town, a sophomore album that's every bit as satisfying as the first.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
;)
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