If Daughtry’s fourth LP teaches us one valuable lesson it’s that you can indeed have too much of a good thing.

No doubt bouyed on by the commercial success of the superb Break The Spell, on which they dialled down their trademark post-grunge heaviness in favour of a radio-friendly mainstream rock sound, they decide to go one step further this time around by delivering a fully-fledged pop album.

Yes, you read that correctly!

Unfortunately the results aren’t anywhere near as satisfying.

Because while it’s predecessor still retained enough “oomph” to ensure that Daughtry walked the fine line between accessibility and legitimacy, Baptized just comes across as a cold attempt to crack the charts.

It would be remiss of us to say there aren’t any great songs here, of course, because Chris Daughtry is – and always has been – a very gifted songwriter.

He flexes these skills several times throughout the album, none more so than Waiting For Superman.

Featuring a well-crafted rhythm section, extra helpings of I’d die-for-you-baby lyrics and a chorus which truly soars, this excellent lead single manages to play to all of Daughtry’s strengths, and it fully deserved the acclaim which it garnered in becoming the band’s tenth (TENTH?!) single to climb into the coveted Billboard Hot 100.

Other standout moments on Baptized include the hair-riaising Broken Arrows and Witness.

It is to the frontman’s credit that he’s able to evoke such powerful emotion on these tracks minus the usual backdrop of thunderous drums and heavy guitars, and it’s especially impressive to hear him transform his vocal delivery from the wounded growl of older songs like You Don’t Belong and Crashed to a sombre storytelling approach which feels every bit as effective.

“We still argue about who’s better;
Motley Crue or GN’R,
And we still can’t believe Van Halen
turned into Van Hagar”

Long Live Rock & Roll

Interestingly, Chris Daughtry chose not to write any of the new material with his bandmates.

That’s the polar opposite of his approach on previous efforts Leave This Town (2009) and Break The Spell (2011), albums which he insisted would only be released if A) the record label would allow the five-piece to operate as a proper band and not a Chris Daughtry solo project, and B) the finished work would contain musical contributions from every single member of the unit.

This time around he took a much more hands on approach to the creative process.

After ending the band’s working relationship with Howard Benson, the man who produced their first three albums, he decided to write all of the new material on his own. He then drafted in the expertise of a whole raft of new producers, whose work spans several musical genres (Martin Johnson, Scott Stevens, Kara DiGuardi, Matthew Thiessen, and more), which is perhaps indicative of an artist who is looking to broaden his musical horizons and reach a fresh audience.

Incidentally, this is also the first Daughtry album which doesn’t feature any of the band on its artwork.

Instead we see an abstract painting of a flower, which was designed by visual artist José Enrique Montes Hernandez. Chris Daughtry felt this artwork did a good job of reflecting the thematic shift in tone between Baptized and their earlier output, and he felt it would be a good way to prepare listeners to expect “something a little bit different” from an album which he described as “a musical rebirth for the band”.

“I enjoy listening to pop music and I’ve wanted to make a pop record for years, but I kept stalling it, you know? It wasn’t until I heard the Bon Jovi album Lost Highway, which is essentially a country album, that I decided to really go for it. They’re one of the biggest rock acts of all time, so for them to have the courage to just switch things up like that, it gave me the confidence to start writing what eventually became Baptized. I mean, we’re not gonna start making dance music or anything (laughs), but yeah, it’s been fun inserting elements of pop into our music.”

– Chris Daughtry

(NOTE: In later years Chris Daughtry would tell a very different story of this creative process. He has now revealed that he considers Baptized a low point in the band’s career, and states that the switch to pop music was a result of the band being backed into a corner by record label bosses who wanted them to duplicate the chart success of Home.)

Unfortunately for Daughtry, some things are not meant to be.

Because despite producing several noteworthy moments throughout it’s 45-minute runtime, the lack of “crunch” seems to rob several of the new songs of their full potential, and the super-polished production also manages to push Daughtry’s normally very capable songwriting skills into shaky territory.

Cringe-inducing lines like “The only thing worse than a hater is a traitor” (Traitor) sound like they were written for a teen television drama, meanwhile the cheese overload of lyrics like“Let me drown in your honey, honey” (Baptized) will have you choking back your own vomit.

Oh, and don’t even get us started on the fucking dreadful chorus of second single Battleships, which really does go “Boom-boo-boom-boom Boo-boom-boom-boom”.

Yikes!

But just when it starts to feel like Daughtry have jumped the shark, they reel us back in with another stone-wall classic.

Step forward Long Live Rock & Roll.

This is three minutes and thirty six seconds which sums up everything which is great about Baptized.

Yes, on one hand it’s odd that a song which remenisces about the glory of rock n’ roll is actually a pop/country stompalong being played by a rock band who seem intent on playing any genre of music but the one they’re celebrating. But on the other hand it’s catchy as a motherfucker, and it’s fun to hear Chris Daughtry musing about “whether Guns N’ Roses were better than Motley Crue“ (spoiler alert: they most certainly were), and admit that he “still wonders if Kurt really wrote all the songs she sang in Hole“ (spoiler alert: he almost certainly did).

“The best of intentions
I lay at your feet
I just need you to see past
The worst parts of me”

Broken Arrows

But even though the high points are incredibly high, this is not enough to save Baptized.

In choosing to add so much pop gloss to their sound Daughtry have inadvertently diluted many of the ingredients which helped them to build such a keen fanbase in the first place. This can’t help but feel like anything other than a backwards step for a band who have put so many years into gaining the respect of rock audiences and distancing themselves from their frontman’s American Idol tenure of almost a decade ago.

We can only hope they decide to return to their rock roots on future releases.

As an interesting sidenote, their longtime touring buddies Bon Jovi received very similar backlash upon dropping the disappointingly edgeless What About Now earlier the same year.

Hey, maybe there was something in the water circa 2013…

In summary:

Baptized is an odd conundum. There’s no denying the quality of the songs on show here, but the decision to cut a pop record ultimately prevents any of them from reaching their full potential. Hopefully this will prompt Daughtry to return to their roots on future releases.

Baptized receives 6/11.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★