The seventh American Idol winner David Cook had been dealt some serious blows before he released his new CD, This Loud Morning.

The hardest of these was the death of his older brother Adam in May 2009, who had been fighting brain cancer. It was this that pushed him to write his most personal album yet.

Although people might think, looking at the title of the new CD, that they will find some hard-rocking "loud" tunes, it turns out to be everything but loud. The CD consists of feel-good mood music for the morning. This Loud Morning has a much more artistic vibe to it, and is good on the ear as it includes strings, piano and rocky guitar bits.

Cook says that as he was writing the material for the CD, a theme began to emerge. "There were mornings where I woke up and all I wanted to do was pull the blanket back over my head and try again tomorrow."

That feeling inspired the album's opening track, "Circadian", as well as its closing track, "Rapid Eye Movement", which includes a line from which the album's title is taken: "Give me one more quiet night before this loud morning gets it right and does me in."

This Loud Morning deals with some heavy themes, but it doesn't mean the CD is a downer, and David credits his producer Matt Serletic (Aerosmith, Rob Thomas, and Willie Nelson) for its success. But it's also easy to see that as an artist he has grown with the recording of This Loud Morning.
Do you have any live reviews to submit? You could win a Kalahari.net voucher - email your article of max 300 words (and photos) to music@channel24.co.za