Planet Zero

Planet Zero serves up an incisive look at the issues at hand: cancel culture run rampant, the corrosive effects of social media on mental health and society, and the increasingly toxic division among those of differing ideologies.

Featuring Shinedown’s ex­plosive yet artfully crafted sound and urgent lyrics, single “Planet Zero” rings the alarm on a dystopian warning of the dangerous consequences to come when it all goes too far, and we begin to lose our respect for those with differing opinions and our compassion for one another.

Produced by Shinedown’s Eric Bass (who also produced the band’s 2018 ac­claimed album ATTENTION ATTENTION) and recorded at Bass’ newly built Big Animal Studio in South Carolina, Planet Zero matches its immersive world-building and takedown of authoritarianism with a deliberately unvarnished sound, and the album is spliced with interludes featuring Cyren, an insidious and unsettling robot character that appears throughout the Planet Zero journey.

While a raw ferocity fuels much of Planet Zero on tracks like “The Saints of Violence and Innuendo”, “No Sleep Tonight” and “America Burning”, there is also hope, triumph, and reminders that we all need one another on songs like “Daylight”, “Dysfunctional You” and “A Symptom of Being Human”.