Live & Inspired

After five studios album and almost 15 years of widespread commercial success, post-grunge heavyweights Godsmack treat fans to a live performance with their first concert album, Live & Inspired. Recorded in Detroit at the Fox Theatre, the band's guitar-heavy sound translates seamlessly into a live setting, retaining all of its heaviness while adding in the roar of the crowd and the open sound of the venue. Delivering solid performances of crowd-pleasers like "Awake," "Straight Outta Line," and "Voodoo," the album feels like an enhanced version of a greatest-hits compilation, delivering the songs fans love with that little extra something you get from a live performance. As an incentive to the die-hard fans to pick up the record, the album also includes a bonus disc of covers, which features Godsmack taking a stab at classic songs like the Beatles' "Come Together," and Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters." Offerings like these help to make Live & Inspired an album that not only shows where the band was at in the 2010s, but also gives a look at where they came from, making for a live album that fans both old and new are going to want to dig into. ~ Gregory Heaney|