3 Doors Down: Seventeen Days : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

When VH1 gets around to I Feel a Bit Queasy About the Early 2000s, they should save a moment for 3 Doors Down. The Mississippi group scored a 2000 hit with "Kryptonite," a neurotic ditty that took a killer guitar hook from the Smiths ("What Difference Does It Make?") and Superman imagery from the Spin Doctors. It sounded like everything else rock radio was playing in 2000, except a little catchier than Vertical Horizon. 3 Doors Down say they call their new album Seventeen Days because that's how long they spent writing the songs. But there's no reason to think it would be any better if they'd spent eighteen or even nineteen days. This is corporate rock the way they used to do it five years ago -- meek, whiny, duller than a donkey's ass.

3 Doors Down try to get heavier this time, but they still can't decide who they want to be when they grow up: Metallica or Matchbox Twenty. So they combine the sappy sides of both bands into mush such as "Never Will I Break." Brad Arnold wails in his basso profundo about how his ladies don't understand him, but they probably just get him confused with the guy from Creed. "Landing in London" is an old-fashioned road song: "L.A.'s gettin' kinda crazy/New York's gettin' kinda cold," Arnold moans, as violins sob behind him. Bob Seger makes a one-line cameo, for some reason. Anyone psyched for a Crazy Town comeback?