Review: Daughtry, 'Leave This Town'

Review: Daughtry, 'Leave This Town'

Daughtry, 'Leave This Town': Aidin Vaziri | Sometimes it feels like the only reason Chris Daughtry exists is to remind people how bad they are at picking "American Idol" winners. Finishing fourth on the season Taylor Hicks took the prize may have been a bitter pill to swallow, but the chrome-domed rocker simply used the setback to thrust forward, coming back with a clutch of huge radio hits and a major-label album that sold more than 5 million copies. Daughtry's second outing is more of a group effort - you can tell because they all posed for the picture on the cover - but with success like that, who would seriously mess with the formula? "Leave This Town" is sensibly built around the same high-end production techniques, catchy melodies and slow-burning growls that made its predecessor so ubiquitous, with just the right balance of hard-rocking bombast and bittersweet power balladry to make it equally inescapable. Adam Lambert has his work cut out.