Walls sounds shit.

It's the musical equivalent of your father who tries to be cool with your friends, but comes across as awkward with his dad jokes. I'm not crapping on this modern direction in general, but for it to succeed, the execution really matters. IMO, the only time they succeeded and it sounded pretty cool was We Don't Run. Other attempts (Walls, Born Again Tomorrow, Knockout) felt uninspired. I don't crap on Shanks as much as most people here, but he is a modern rock procuder, not EDM-pop. They should work with guys like Max Martin, Shellback, Kygo, etc. who know what their doing in THIS field. I'd love to hear that Avicii song with Jon.

However, I also disagree that their next album should be heavy guitar-driven. Jon simply does not have a voice to carry a tune over loud guitars. These type of songs require powerful anthemic choruses and high notes. I think of a song like Bullet, where they tried that direction and IMO failed, even though Jon was still a competent singer back then.

I think Jon is best suited moving into singer-songwriter-storyteller direction. To some extent, he already has - most of Destination Anywhere album, Just Older, Right Side of Wrong, Who Says You Can't Go Home, (You Want To) Make A Memory, Whole Lot Of Leavin', Lost Highway, Superman Tonight, Living With The Ghost, I Will Drive You Home, Reunion. Some of these songs are better than others, but they're all are some kind of extensions of that style that I feel does not demand so much vocally, but can still be good if the writing is good enough and that's something that Jon has shown at times he's still capable.