Sevendust’s Blood & Stone is the sound of a band who finally mean business once more

Atlanta metal mainstays Sevendust serve up their best album in years with Blood & Stone

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Sevendust: Blood & Stone album review
(Image: © Rise)

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In recent times, Sevendust have released decent albums, but with little drive. With Blood & Stone the band finally sound as if they mean business again. Thankfully it has more in common with early releases like Animosity and Seasons than anything recorded in the past decade. The songs bristle with melody and aggression; vocalist Lajon Witherspoon pushes himself to the limit throughout, as he combines fluently with Clint Lowery’s inimitable guitar dynamic to raise the likes of Dying To Live and Kill Me to rare heights of emotional power, while Nothing Left To See Here Anymore is an impassioned modern power ballad. The album finishes with a fine cover of Soundgarden’s The Day I Tried To Live. It’s a classy way to end Sevendust’s best work in years.

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.