The third studio album from the Las Vegas-based outfit,
Stuck is a master class in late-'90s/early-aughts melodic hard rock, depending on one's predilection either a beacon of melodiousness in a sea of grating metalcore or a collection of potential audio cues for future UFC highlight reels. Whatever your persuasion, there's no denying that
Adelitas Way has the
Nickelback/
Seether/
Puddle of Mudd/
Godsmack thing down to a science, and with the Nick Raskulinecz (
Foo Fighters,
Rush)-produced
Stuck, their talent for engineering big, generic hard rock moments that are as expertly honed and on the nose as they are completely innocuous, has achieved a sort of perfection. Vocalist and co-founder Rick DeJesus possesses a voice that suggests a lot of other like-minded singers (Daughtry,
Kroeger,
Stapp,
Rossdale, etc.), but his pro-chops and relative even-handedness keep him from becoming a mere underbite rock caricature, especially on more pop-oriented fare like "Something More" and "Drive." If anything,
Stuck proves that the band knows it can have its cake and eat it, too, as they manage to court both the MTV reality series-watching mainstream and the heavily tattooed, bandana-blasted, Sons of Anarchy-loving hard rockers ("Dog on a Leash") with an equal amount of genuine passion and calculated fervor. They're not here to reinvent the wheel, they're just here to keep that wheel on the road, and retread it as needed. [
Stuck was also released with two bonus tracks.] ~ James Christopher Monger