Godsmack (Awake - Godsmack)

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Product:	Awake - Godsmack
Date:	03/08/01 (133 review reads)
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As popular as they are, the Boston-based heavy rock act Godsmack got a lot of flak with their debut album for basically ripping off Alice In Chains, even to the point of using one of the latter band's song titles as their name (no one believed the ludicrous cover story they came up with for that one). While that would be difficult to dispute – and, hey, Alice In Chains is missing in action anyway, so what the hell – it's nice to see that, on their second album Awake the band has gotten away from the Alice thing and has started developing a sound of their own.

The first thing you notice about Awake is how fat it sounds: the production here is huge, heavy, grinding, and the riffs pile up thick and fast. There's hints of Metallica, Disturbed, Sabbath, and yes, still a little Alice, but the band has synthesized the different elements into something that's a little more uniquely Godsmack. Vocalist Sully Erna is singing more aggressively now, also creating more of his own style and reaching for some new heights on ""Forgive Me.""

So life is good, right? Well, not quite. Awake shows definite signs of progression, and is as heavy as elephant, er, tusks, but these boys have to break out of this ""all-the-same-tempo-all-the-time"& quot; thing they're stuck in. Ten of the 11 tracks here (the odd one out is a short intro) all have the same, medium-slow, grinding beat, which just gets monotonous after 45 minutes. And Erna, despite his aforementioned growth as a vocalist, tends to get stuck in a bit of a melodic rut as well. ""Bad Magick"" and the eerie, mostly instrumental ""Vampires"" break the mold a little, but a little variation would go a long way.

Godsmack aren't gonna change the world, and they don't offer anything extraordinary, but Awake will keep their old fans happy and perhaps make some new ones. The best I can say is that it
didn't put me to sleep.

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