Canter Bridge

Like the mythological Athena, Daughtry seems have sprung full grown and fully armed from the head of his father, call him Music. I mean, where is the warm-up here? Where is the amateurish posing, the awkward yearning to be profound?

This eponymous debut album plays like a very strong sophomore effort, not the uneven first shot that one anticipates from a First Time Thing. The band’s sound fronts Chris Daughtry’s convincing voice and persona against the backdrop of tight vocal harmonies, crisp guitar and bass work, and unobtrusive but effective drumming.

The mega-hit `It’s Not Over’ introduces the CD, but things don’t go limp right after that as one might have anticipated. Tracks 2 (`Used To’), 3 (`Home’), and 4 (`Over You’) throw up single-worthy tunes of similar caliber. `Used To’ in particular shows one of the bands signatures: the juxtaposition of Chris Daughtry’s lightly-accompanied voice with calibrated explosions of a harder, harmonized sound. It’s an impressive tool. `Home’ is an impressive ode to stable love back home as seen by a weary roadster a little tired of the thin adulation that surrounds him out there. Out here. The lyrics are worth quoting:

I’m staring out into the night,
Trying to hide the pain.
I’m going to the place where love
And feeling good don’t ever cost a thing.
And the pain you feel’s a different kind of pain.

Well I’m going home,
Back to the place where I belong,
And where your love has always been enough for me.
I’m not running from.
No, I think you got me all wrong.
I don’t regret this life I chose for me.
But these places and these faces are getting old,
So I’m going home.
Well I’m going home.

The miles are getting longer, it seems,
The closer I get to you.
I’ve not always been the best man or friend for you.
But your love remains true.
And I don’t know why.
You always seem to give me another try.

So I’m going home,
Back to the place where I belong,
And where your love has always been enough for me.
I’m not running from.
No, I think you got me all wrong.
I don’t regret this life I chose for me.
But these places and these faces are getting old,

Be careful what you wish for,
‘Cause you just might get it all.
You just might get it all,
And then some you don’t want.
Be careful what you wish for,
‘Cause you just might get it all.
You just might get it all, yeah.

Oh, well I’m going home,
Back to the place where I belong,
And where your love has always been enough for me.
I’m not running from.
No, I think you got me all wrong.
I don’t regret this life I chose for me.
But these places and these faces are getting old.
I said these places and these faces are getting old,
So I’m going home.
I’m going home.

`Home’ may be the track we’ll look back on one day and point to as the artistic moment that showed Daughtry to me more than just a good lead vocalist. He could write, too.

Yet to linger over these tunes could short those that follow. `Crashed’ for example may well present the band’s best sound more capably than any of the album’s dozen tracks.

The most astonishing quality of this band’s recorded debut is that there is not a single weak song in the mix. After multiple critical hearings of the album front to back, I find each song impressive in its own way.

Chris Daughtry and his band will likely remake themselves in future and this out of necessity. They will do so with the benefit of a remarkably solid platform beneath them.