I have a lot of problems reviewing this album. As the bio says, everything they wrote turned out to be catchy, which is quite true. All the material on this album will appeal to the average rock fan without a doubt. But for metalheads this is a lot harder to digest than the previous album. As the songwriting process and the recording process are both completely different compared to the last album, the records really sounds like night and day.

Drummer Joel Ekman has departed from the band due to circumstances in his family and has been replaced by Roy Mayorga (ex-Soulfly). Joel did drum ‘30/30-150’ for the album already, but that sounded so different from the rest that it had to be recorded again. But Roy, who recorded his parts in just a week, was at that time doing the European Sepultura tour, so they asked Godsmack’s drummer and long-time friend Shannon Larkin to lay down the tracks. There is also a keyboard guest performance by The Wallflowers’ Rami Jaffee on the track ‘Zzyxz RD.’. Just so you know about that.

 

While the debut was a lot rawer and aggressive, they’ve chosen a cleaner and more accessible approach with Come What(ever) May. You could easily say that you’re listening to a pop-rock band with nu-metal influences. Make that 80-ies pop-rock, because a lot of the material seems to be based on that type of rock. Bon Jovi is a name I’d rather not mention for it’s uncoolness, but it is a name that comes to mind when auditing this record, especially with some of the ballads. Especially the track ‘Zzyxz RD.’ reminds me of them.

But still, does that mean it is bad? Just because they’ve made an album full of good pop-rock songs with the occasional nu-metal outburst that is accessible to even your Beatles-loving parents perhaps, they should be spewed out like that? I cannot and will not say that. It’s not an album I’ll play frequently, but I can surely imagine myself sitting in our garden on a sunny afternoon with a beer in my hand, just chilling.

Corey’s voice of course pleases me as always, so nothing to complain there. He could have chosen a bit more well-considered vocal lines rather than the easy ones, but I’m still satisfied.

 

The conclusions I draw from this are these:

 

I like the previous album better for it’s rawness.

This album will sell like hell, give the fans a couple more albums and within time a Bon Jovi status can be reached I suspect.

This album will attract a lot of new fans, but it will disappoint a lot of old fans as well.

Any Corey Taylor fan will be pleased.

You have to see for yourself if you’ll dig this or not.

Please post some comments underneath here about you’re opinions on the album, I’m quite curious what other people think about it.