Daughtry: Leave This Town (2009) Review

Some will see this as playing it safe.

Others will see it as standing firm.

Either way, when we consider that Daughtry’s strong debut record catapulted the band into the upper echeolons of the Billboard 200 three years ago, we don’t really blame them for using a very similar template on the follow-up.

A Group Effort

This is the first Daughtry album to be written as a five-piece collective.

The first album back in 2006 was created as a Chris Daughtry solo project, but upon completion the frontman pushed RCA Records to let him recruit a permanent line-up of musicians and switch the project to a fully-fledged band, meaning this is “technically” their first proper album together.

He stayed true to his word on wanting to operate as a collective unit, too, because Leave This Town does indeed feature songwriting contributions from all five members.

That being said, of course, it is the talismanic frontman who takes center stage.

He possesses an uncanny knack for writing chorus-driven rock songs with massive radio appeal, and is able to evoke real emotion with a tortured, sincere vocal delivery which makes him altogether more relatable than many of his one dimensional post-grunge rivals (Nickelback, Staind, Fuel, etc.).

“We’ve tried to make it known that this isn’t just me, because I’ve never considered myself a solo artist. It bums me out when the band doesn’t get the credit they deserve, because they’re working just as hard as I do.”

– Chris Daughtry

“We’ve tried to make it known that this isn’t just me, because I’ve never considered myself a solo artist.

It bums me out when the band doesn’t get the credit they deserve, because they’re working just as hard as I do.”

– Chris Daughtry

Straight-Ahead Rock Done Right

Album opener You Don’t Belong sets the tone for things to come.

Drilling deeper into the heavy-as-fuck sound of their previous record, it’s perhaps not as catchy as the likes of Crashed and It’s Not Over, but still possesses a filthy bassline and thunderous drums which do more than enough damage to create a lasting impression.

Elsewhere, however, it’s palpably audible that the streak of angst which ran through their debut record has been dialled down this time around.

Whether this was a conscious decision in order to achieve more airplay isn’t clear, but it’s by no means a bad thing.

For Daughtry are well-suited to delivering this kind of chorus-driven hard rock, and there’s clearly a large audience out there for it.

Those listeners will be delighted with standout tracks like Ghost Of Me, Every Time You Turn Around, and No Surprise, which we expect will become mainstays of the band’s live catalogue for years to come.

Stacks Of Material To Choose From

While preparing for this record, the band is said to have entered the studio with 70 songs (!).

These were then whittled down to 10-20.

There were interesting songwriting collaborations aplenty, with Daughtry teaming up with the likes of Chad Kroeger (Nickelback), Richard Marx, Ryan Tedder (One Republic), and Adam Gontier (Three Days Grace) at various junctions throughout the process.

However, most of the tracks which featured outside contributions failed to make the final cut of the album, instead finding a home on the “tour edition” (Leave This Town: The B-Sides) which was released the following year.

It’s worth noting that many of these songs (e.g. Back Again, Traffic Light, Get Me Through) were easily good enough to have made the record, which you’ll see when you take a look at our definitive playlist at the end of this article.

"Of all the things I still remember,
Summer's never looked the same."

SEPTEMBER

Too Much Of A Good Thing?

Our main criticism of Leave This Town is that there’s too many ballads.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s no denying Chris Daughtry’s talent for penning these kind of material, but the sheer number of them is quite overwhelming.

Yep, nine (!) of the album’s fourteen songs.

This is likely because the band (or label) wanted to capitalize on the success of uber-hit Home from their previous record, but we must concur that there’s only so many times your heartstrings can be tugged at and your guts can be wrenched before it all starts to sound the same.

A smarter move would have been to trade a handful of these acoustic numbers for some of the great uptempo tracks which were relegated to the aforementioned B-sides collection (e.g Traffic Light), because doing so would’ve guaranteed maximum impact for hopeful coming-of-age ballad September and the lyrically devastating Open Your Eyes.

"But as they laid him in the ground,
Her heart would sing without a sound."

OPEN YOUR EYES

Daughtry: Leave This Town

As far as second albums go, Leave This Town checks all the boxes.

It might lack the crunch of it’s predecessor, but there’s more than enough quality on show here to suggest that Daughtry are going to be a force to be reckoned with in the next few years.

Lead single No Surprise went on to reach #15 on the coveted US Billboard Hot 100, immediately followed by Life After You which peaked at #38 and spent an impressive 62 weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Rock Digital Songs.

Standout track September then rounded out the singles releases, climbing to #36 and becoming Daughtry’s ninth single to reach the Billboard Hot 100, which is an outstanding achievement for a band who are only two albums deep into their career.

Furthermore, when we consider the chart success of recent albums from the likes of Guns N’ Roses, Bon Jovi, and AC/DC, in addition to the collapse of the nu-metal scene, the stage could well be set for Daughtry to take up the mantle as “the choice of a new generation”.

If that is to be the case, then Leave This Town puts them in good stead.