If you ask me, in all honesty, there is no better album produced than Breaking Benjamin’s 2007 Phobia. Yup, I said it. As such, I was of course intrigued, to say the least, when it was announced that they were releasing a follow-up entitled Dear Agony over three years after the genius that was Phobia, marking their 4th studio album.

I switch Dear Agony on to the unmistakable Breaking Benjamin guitar picking of lead track ‘Fade Away.’ Lead singer, Ben Burnley, comes in with opening line “It’s over / I didn’t wanna see it come to this,” restraining his voice perfectly to make a simple melody which is kicked into gear upon hitting the chorus. This track hits me hard cementing the memory they left me with three years ago.

First single ‘I Will Not Bow’ follows with the epic lead single vibe that ‘Polyamorous,’ ‘So Cold’ and ‘The Diary of Jane’ did for Saturate, We Are Not Alone and Phobia respectively. The insolent lyrics fit the rock n roll guitar, making this a great fight song with lyrics “I will not bow / I will not break / I will shut the world away.” The overall tone of this track is significantly darker than most other Breaking Benjamin tunes, with a harder bass line and dirty guitar. The song has since had two music videos made to accompany, one featuring scenes from the no doubt spell-binding Bruce Willis nugget, Surrogates (for both, see below).

‘I Will Not Bow’ and ‘Crawl’ almost run into each other, with an extremely similar riff carrying over from fade out to intro. A disciplined rhythm guitar sets a rousing pace to the song, and Burnley’s controlled yell takes the album into a completely new, more metal genre.

On the complete flipside to ‘Crawl,’ ‘Give Me a Sign’ is the ballad of the album. The song is perfectly heartfelt while still keeping the rock edge with a relatively standard rock chorus, while managing to stay well clear of tack. It’s nice to have a simple Breaking Benjamin song that focuses entirely on the introspective lyrics and makes the cover art (a MRI scan of Burnley’s head) seem all the more poignant.

If you were left a little soft after ‘Give Me a Sign,’ then ‘Hopeless’ should perk you right up. Stand out riffs and Burnley’s contorted roar are all over this track. Contrasting again with a slower intro than anything else thus far on Dear Agony, ‘What Lies Beneath’ mellows with great lyrical description, “So I’ll find what lies beneath your sick twisted smile / As I lie underneath your cold jaded eyes / Now you’ve turned the tide on me / cause you’re so unkind / I will always be here / For the rest of my life”.

‘Anthem of the Angels’ opens with an ominous string section, layered with a simple, yet distinctive Breaking Benjamin guitar riff. A cello and violin accompany each verse providing a theatrical, airy vibe making me wish they experimented more in this direction for Dear Agony. The acoustic breakdown provides another level to the recording, and changing the tone of the otherwise epically boisterous track.

‘Lights Out’ is a perfectly average song number eight. The uncreative metaphor of “After the lights go out on you / After your worthless life is through” plays a little simple and monotonous, and with the ordinary beat, the track unfortunately seems like filler.

Title track ‘Dear Agony’ brings the quality back up with soaring vocals and melodic guitar riffs. Burnley himself has said that the album, and this track in particular, started out as a sort of ‘letter to agony,’ as he dealt with writing and recording for the first time sober. Burnley’s new found sobriety seems to be paying off, as this is one of the most well written, honest tracks featuring on Dear Agony and would be one of my favourites. I will be very surprised if they don’t release this as a single.

Penultimate ‘Into The Nothing’ is again a decent Breaking Benjamin song, but nothing unique as the verses flow all too insignificantly into the choruses, and final track ‘Without You’ finishes up slightly on the weightless side for quite an intense album, with a muted beat and no stand out solo to make a point to the tune. Conveniently however, the album is tied up nicely with lyrics, “I forgive you, forget you, the end.”

It seems, after giving Dear Agony a full listen, I’m still not sure how I feel about it. All eleven tracks on the album are very good in their own respect, but the absolutely monumental musical and lyrical tunes (‘Give Me a Sign,’ ‘Anthem of the Angels,’ ‘Dear Agony’…) are sporadic and there doesn’t appear to be a great deal of progression from the earlier Breaking Benjamin sound to where they are now. The lyrical regurgitation makes it seem as if the solo song writing duties for this album have become a little too much for Burnley. Unusually, RED guitarist, Jasen Rauch was brought in to assist in the writing of five tracks featuring on Dear Agony, but the topics and emotions conveyed remain relatively similar to much of Breaking Benjamin’s previous work.

This is not to say the songs aren’t all good in their own right, but I don’t think there is enough evident growth within the band to rate Dear Agony where it possibly could have been as a follow-up to Phobia. To sum up, and to quote guitarist, Aaron Fink, “If you like Breaking Benjamin, you’re gonna like this record.”