Everything about this yells angst-laden contemporary rock with big distorted guitars and two contrasting sets of vocals, one melodic, one screaming. The band’s name, the title, the artwork, the song titles. I mean, c’mon: ‘Curses’, ‘Bitterness Got the Better of Me’, ‘I Am Jack’s Lingering Regret’. Ok, so the last one is a ‘Fight Club’ reference, and so I figured FFOL deserved a fair hearing at least (even if they do namedrop all of the usual references by way of a comparison, namely Alexisonfire, At the Drive-In, Avenged Sevenfold etc. etc. etc.) and bill themselves as ‘post-hardcore’.
Turns out I was half right: blasting out of the traps with a contorted larynx and bellowing ferociously ‘tell me what the fuck has changed’, so far so standard, right? Actually, while the angst and the dual vocals might be spot on, they sound more like Bivouac.
|
There’s a bit of a punk edge to ‘I Am Jack’s Lingering Regret’ and ‘Waiting’, and in all fairness, it’s not bad – and if they’d lose the cliché screaming backup vocal they’d be even better.
Fist Full of Lies on MySpace
|