Search - Extreme :: III Sides to Every Story (Mlps) (Shm)

Make love not war sounds so absurd...

Mark H. | Hanson, MA USA | 05/26/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Boston's Extreme would hit their artistic peak with release of `III Sides to Every Story' but unfortunately not all great art is appreciated commercially. The album dropped in sales compared to its predecessor which sold double platinum on the strength of hit singles. `III Sides' doesn't take the easy way out and while though it does have songs which should have dented the singles market, the band was not aiming for low brow but high concept. As grunge was hitting the marketplace by mid-1992, metal bands who presented progressive concept albums were in danger of suffering the slings and arrows of both critics and fickle fans. The LP is divided into three parts (hence three sides) "Yours", a hard rocking album more in the `Pornograffitti' vane, "Mine", featuring the mellower more introspective side of the band and "The Truth" which is truly the most progressive of the three parts and featured longer songs with multi-parts and orchestration while built around a general theme of "Everything Under the Sun". With patience and persistence, `III Sides' is how Extreme envisioned their fans would eventually accept their high minded concepts; addressing religion but also war, politics, racism, failed romance ,tabloid journalism and parental love. "Rest in Peace", "Tragic Comic", "Am I Ever Gonna Change", "Warheads", "Peacemaker Die" and "Stop the World" are all career highlights. Extreme sought to emulate their heroes on `III Sides' and based on what I hear, they measure up quite well."