Shinedown

Although hailing from Jacksonville , Fla. , this four-piece doesn't so much reinvent Southern rock as resurrect grunge and give it a Southern accent. Picking up where Soundgarden and Alice in Chains left off, singer Brent Smith broods and worries through a dozen songs that are awash in layers of guitar, anxious drums and a slow, pensive bass. Relationships are soured, skies are dark and filled with clouds, and shotguns are raised, but there is something compelling and beautiful about this deliberate exaltation of anguish.