Skillet -- Rise

8/10

I had all but given up on Skillet. It had been ten years since I had found any enjoyment from one of their new albums. Then again, that's the story of Skillet and me. I forget about them. They surprise me. This is the third time it's happened, and Rise certainly is a surprise. After two efforts that felt like corporate capitulations, Skillet have come back to their essential state. Not cheesy butt rock. Cheesy Christian rock. Yes, I'll be the first to admit, there's some cheesiness to Rise. However, it's that cheesiness that leverages into authentic feeling, and makes Rise a winner.
Rise sees frontman, John Cooper, envisioning a conversion story. It starts with some surprisingly bleak heavy songs, sometimes incorporating that symphonic rock the band have perfected, and sometimes featuring a straight ahead, no-nonsense metal style, interspersed with a couple of more optimistic, laid-back songs to punctuate the dark clouds with some hope. There's a bunch of stuff about facing down death, and the insanity of the modern world. Then, after these first seven tracks, the final five chart a conversion (with a reading of Isaiah in the transition from track seven to eight), beginning with "Salvation." It's a pretty stunning album transformation, with the convincing religious fervor of "Fire and Fury" and "My Religion" leading to the challenge to faith of "Hard to Find," which leads directly to the reaffirmation of faith in the closer, "What I Believe."
Rise is a bold album. While previous album, Awake, was extremely lousy, it did launch Skillet to a higher level of fame and secular success. To come out with an album that leans so heavily into their Christian faith is a huge risk, but for better or worse, Cooper and crew have always followed their hearts. In Rise's case, I'd say for the better. While Cooper always sounds overly earnest, here he's earnest about something very close to his heart, lending the album an authenticity that Awake and parts of Comatose lacked (and even in Rise's angry parts...the first time I heard "Sick of It's" last take a stand/raise your hands" refrain, I thought he was going to scream "Raise your f'ing hands!"). The music is more diverse and well-performed than any Skillet album in the 21st century. Yes, the wackier bits of "Circus for a Psycho" are over-the-top, and Cooper probably reaches a little to far with his romance metaphors in "My Religion." The album as a whole works.

A personal note: I had a real false-start in life going on in 2013 when this album was released. I'd just crushed my first semester of my early-30's return to college for a second degree, feeling that I was surely on my way to a great career as an engineer. My wife got promoted at her job, and I quit my day job (I still worked nights at the library) to focus more on school. Life seemed like starry bliss. In the fall, 1.5 years later, her company went under, and I had to drop out, making a mad dash to keep our mortgage and bill payments afloat, though due to the inarguable fact that I do not have the mind of an engineer, I would have had to have dropped out eventually, anyway. That next spring (2015), I re-enrolled in accounting, and the rest is history.

2013 Atlantic
1. Rise 4:20
2. Sick of It 3:11
3. Good to Be Alive 4:59
4. Not Gonna Die 3:45
5. Circus for a Psycho 4:31
6. American Noise 4:09
7. Madness in Me 4:17
8. Salvation 3:45
9. Fire and Fury 3:56
10. My Religion 4:12
11. Hard to Find 3:48
12. What I Believe 3:19