Three Days Grace: Adam Conter (vocals, guitar); Barry Stock (guitar); Brad Walst (bass guitar); Neil Sanderson (drums, background vocals).
The 2006 sophomore effort from alt-metal outfit Three Days Grace holds steady on the muscular guitars, accessible melodies, and dark themes of the band's debut. Fans of the first album will find more of the group's sound--which owes a debt to both Alice in Chains and nu-metal bands like Godsmack--to like here, but a sharper version of it. There is plenty of anguish and ennui in the band's lyrics ("Pain;" "Time of Dying"), but for all of ONE-X's expressions of isolation and pain, the album is eminently listenable, especially when Three Days Grace works a deep, riff-heavy groove ("Animal I Have Become") or unleashes a ferocious stomp ("Riot").