Review Collective Soul
Afterwords

1. Year: 2007
2. Style: ROCK
3. Rating:

Band that struggled for the warm place

Everyone knows that the father of grunge was Curt Cobain. After his death all music a-la Nirvana is called post-grunge, though many mediosrities try to copy Cobain's success, only a few commands are able to play qualitative post-grunge rock. Collective Soul is for sure one of the prominent representatives of this genre.The band was gathered in 1992 and borrowed the title from a book by Ayn Rand. In a year, after a stream of failures, they became popular. Their debut work of 1994 and the following disc both became platinum, but guys saw no money. The reason was as simple as world - their manager took all the profits into his pocket, leaving the band only miserable sums. The court process lasted for about 1.5 years and Collective Soul could not use their money as the funds were frosen. Anyway, they managed to release the next album, recorded in a cow pasture. Though the lead guitarist and the drummer left the collective in the early 00’s, the band worked out three more discs, each containing strong hits. In 2007 Collective Soul presented to the public their seventh masterpiece Afterwords.

Afterwords: prominent work by post-grunge veterans

Collective Soul originally play post-grunge, but two or three of their last albums sounded pop-like due to the musical experiments. Afterwords is a pleasant come back of the Collective Soul to alternative rock, though the songs are very melodic and suitable for various listeners. The first single from the Afterwords became Hollywood, upbeat and energetic, it immediately became the rock song of the summer in the USA. At minimum half of the Collective Soul's tracks from Afterwords are worth becoming popular. So are What I Can Give You, romantic song about love to a girl, piercing Breaking Witness with an extremely remembable guitar solo and chorus reminding of A-Ha, and emotional All That I Know with traditional Collective's heavy guitar riffs. There are three wonderful lyrical compositions on the album - Good Morning After All, Georgian Girl and Adored. The first mentioned song has a very catchy melody and tells that tomorrow there will be a brand new day and all the sorrows will stay in the past. Adored, the closer of Afterwords, is a beautiful rock ballad about the role of tenderness in love relations.

Album under the lucky number 7

Actually, "collective soul" as a term in the book by Ayn Rand was used with negative connotation, meaning the danger for individualism and loss of unique qualities by the main character in order to be like others. But the band managed to bring the positive flavour in this term - their Collective Soul means close unity of the band members in their creative process. And there is no doubt, that only a well-played and united collective can sound so melodic and harmonical, like this post-grunge Atlanta group on the Afterwords. The same can be said about the songs on the album. It can be stated without any flatter that each of the 11 tracks has its own charm and individuality, though listening to them one would definetely see that all the songs are fulfilled in the same high quality both musically and lyrically, and are executed in the same style. Besides, songs by Collective Soul on Afterwords are united by the same idea of positive events of life (with the exception of a dramatic composition I Don't Need Anymore Friends). Afterwords is the band's album under the bringing luck number 7, and it is definetely a success.