The Shinedown Band

Shinedown's music has most commonly been described as hard rock, alternative metal, post-grunge,

Shinedown's music has most commonly been described as hard rock, alternative metal, post-grunge, alternative rock, grunge, arena rock, nu metal with pop and Southern rock influences.

In August 2013, Kerch disagreed with more specialized genre ascribed to the band, stating that "We're just a rock 'n' roll band" while conceding that each album did have a markedly different rock sound to them by design. The nu metal label has been applied to the band's earlier work by journalists on occasion, though the band disputes that term as well.

The band's first album, Leave a Whisper, largely stayed away from having any guitar solos, something then-guitarist Todd felt was undesirable due to the popularity of nu metal at the time of recording album, though he felt the band was never particularly part of the genre's movement.

With nu metal falling out of popularity by the mid-2000s, they began adding guitar solos more prominently to their music, starting with their next album, Us and Them. Us and Them has also been described as less "grungy" than its predecessor with "more twisted, progressive song structures".

The Sound of Madness went in different musical and lyrical directions as compared to the band's previous two albums. Barry Kerch noted that lineup changes and volatility in the band members' lives produced a darker and angrier sound.

The album's lead single, "Devour", is an anti-war anthem, but The Sound of Madness also contains "If You Only Knew", the band's first love ballad. Amaryllis has been noted to have a more positive, "anthemic" bent.

Writing for Loudwire, Anne Erickson described the album's sound as "aggressive-yet-cathartic."

Their fifth studio album, Threat to Survival, was described as the band's most "pop-oriented" album, with the single "State of My Head" being referred to as "a slick amalgam of electro-pop and vintage alt-rock with a catchy as hell though extremely well-worn chorus." The 2018 follow-up, Attention Attention, is a concept album that begins with the narrator in a "dark, negative place" and gradually emerging from that over the course of the track listing. Both Threat to Survival and Attention Attention have been described as having more of a pop rock sound but have also been described as hard rock.