Album Review: David Cook by David Cook

If you’re expecting Daughtry 2: Post-Grunge Boogaloo, well…you’re about right. Cook is clearly built in the guy-linered mold of that earlier Idol alum, though his debut owes just as much to the expert hands that craft it, including producers Rob Cavallo (Green Day, My Chemical Romance) and Brian Howes (Hinder, Chris Cornell). They give David Cook‘s clutch of bombastic verse-chorus- verse rockers an impressive melodic sheen, one well suited to Cook’s husky, expressive vocals.

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All these rockers may give Cook some relative street cred but they're no guarantee for a hit record, something the AmIdol enterprise desperately needs at this point, so they're paired with certified hitmakers: Cathy Dennis comes in for "Heroes," Chantal Kreviazuk teams with Maida for "Permanent," and most notably, Espionage work with Maloy on his three songs. If Espionage's work leaves no discernible impact -- there's nothing that sounds remotely similar to Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" or other hits they've penned for Chris Brown or Jessica Simpson -- Kerviazuk and Dennis compensate by gently weaving tried and true commercialisms into their songs, gently pushing Cook toward a crossover he's already made anyway. He not only is a star thanks to AmIdol, but he's always been ready to do big, happy, crowd-pleasing grunge-pop, as his self-released 2006 debut, Analog Heart, proved.

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