The new SHINEDOWN album is out May 4.
From Billboard: The concept rolls from the pounding, riff-driven attack of "DEVIL" to "KILL YOUR CONSCIENCE" and its cautionary tale of social media to "special," which Smith says he thinks "is one of the more interesting songs that people will probably have quite a few conversations about." By album closer "BRILLIANT," normally a spot reserved on Shinedown albums for a ballad to bid adieu the listener, the LP has transcended to a rafters-reaching major-key hook that defiantly proclaims it's "my day to be brilliant" -- certainly a 180 from "DEVIL."
"At the beginning of the record, you can feel this intensity and these bold statements that are being made," Smith says. "But as the record progresses, you hear the individual and the record start to shift, and they start to get their confidence back, and they start to understand what's going on, because they're having to face emotions that they've never really faced before. We call it digging in the dirt mentally. This person has to flush it out. In order to be able to get out of this room and out of this chair and go back into the world, they have to train themselves mentally. They have to accept the fact that it's not always going to be great. It's not always going to be exactly the way you want it.
"A lot of this record is about me, and a lot of this record is about the things in my life that I've been afraid to face in one way or another. But it's also about Eric and what he faces. And that was a very bold understanding that me and him had during the making of this record, that nothing was off limits. This record is also about Zach, and this record is also about Barry, you know? We had to come from a very real place."
