Having tackled mental health and addiction on 2018’s Attention Attention, Shinedown have now turned their sights to the threat posed by social media, cancel culture, and the growing toxic intolerance that is being exploited for personal and corporate gain.
Planet Zero draws a bleak, chilling vision of how this could play out – the restrictions on individual liberty and freedoms – in a way that makes George Orwell’s 1984 seem positively benign.
Singer Brent Smith creates an insidious robot character to guide you through the authoritarian dangers of this dystopian world, emphasising that you will be fine as long as you don’t rock the boat. He unleashes his fury at the power-hungry tech behemoths while gently extolling the vulnerable human beauty they seek to pervert.
Meanwhile, the band utilise the well-honed dynamics of their visceral arena rock as a potent soundtrack. A shame they haven’t taken down their Facebook page, though.
