The veteran Georgia metallers' 13th studio effort, Blood & Stone commences with the seismic "Dying to Live," a textbook Sevendust endeavor that pairs crushing, bottom-heavy riffage with razor-sharp hooks. As steely and sound as it is indifferent to maturation, the 13-song set nevertheless impresses via brute force and mastery of craft, two things that the band have excelled at over the last two decades. Few artists in the dwindling alternative/nu-metal universe have been as consistent as Sevendust, and Blood & Stone is no exception, with future live staples "Love," "What You've Become," and the aforementioned "Dying to Live" equaling the soulful, sonic firepower of fan favorites like "Denial," "Praise," and "Enemy." Welding fist-pumping melodic hard rock onto a nu-metal chassis has always been the group's bread and butter, and the front half of Blood & Stone operates almost exclusively via those schematics. It's later on that things begin to drift, with a handful of sturdy yet formulaic midtempo offerings like "Nothing Left to See Here Anymore," "Criminal," and "Alone" veering into forgettable active rock radio territory. That having been said, frontman Lajon Witherspoon's expressive voice -- which manages to come off as both bruised and bruising -- and his reliably elliptical chorus melodies achieve a sort of buoyancy that helps elevate some of the less-immediate offerings. Concluding with an emotionally charged rendering of Soundgarden's "The Day I Tried to Live," the aptly named Blood & Stone is so committed to its late-'90s/early-2000s esthetic that the last decade may as well have been a cosmic aberration, but as per usual, Sevendust manage to infuse the proceedings with enough gravitas to elicit respect.
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