It was somewhat of a surprise that Chris Daughtry didn't win American Idol in its fifth season. Thankfully though that didn't hinder his progress, two platinum selling albums later and now we have "Break The Spell," this the third album from his self titled band.
Prior to the albums release, Chris said in an interview that the new record sounds nothing like the other two. Well that's definitely not true, it's very similar, but Daughtry does try to experiment slightly with his sound, with somewhat mixed results.
Lead single "Renegade" is a prime example, it's the heaviest song on here and after a few listens you really begin to hear probably one of the catchiest choruses in any Daughtry song, a definite album highlight.
Chris reverts exactly to type though on the next single "Crawling Back To You," which although a decent song sounds just like any other he's chucked out before.
"Outta My Head" is about as uptempo as it gets, not initially a strong song but grows on you after a few listens.
"Start of Something Good" is the best song on here, without question. Mid tempo and acoustic in it's delivery with meaningful lyrics, this should be the next single and sits quite rightly towards the top of the record.
Elsewhere although there's still plenty of good songs with the same catchy melodies and choruses, they somehow all seem to sound a bit bland and predictable.
I've always felt with Chris's previous records that almost any song could be released as a single, they were all that strong. Something's missing though this time, nothing really bad on here but certainly songs like "Break The Spell," "We're Not Gonna Fall" and "Losing My Mind" are all far too similar.
No real power ballad on here either, unlike "Home" and "Learn My Lesson" from his previous albums. "Gone Too Soon" comes close, but never really builds up to that big chorus the song badly needs. Nice lyrics though.
If you've brought the deluxe edition then you'll get four extra tracks, the best of which are "Maybe We're Already Gone" and "Everything But Me." The former is a great song, should have slotted into the final twelve album tracks to break up the slow tone to the albums middle.
Overall, "Break The Spell" is still a highly enjoyable record. Chris delivers modern, mainstream rock and absolutely nothing more. He does it very well, there's plenty here to keep the array of Daughtry fans very happy, even though it's not his best record.
Definitely download:
"Renegade," "Start of Something Good," "Rescue Me" "We're Not Gonna Fall."