Review Summary: Metal's "new" Pantera return, with more sledgehammer than scalpel
America's mainstream metal scene is ever leaning towards the sounds of metalcore, a sound perfected by bands such as Avenged Sevenfold, Killswitch Engage and even Slipknot to a certain extent. Hence, it comes as a surprise, perhaps that Five Finger Death Punch's latest effort, "War is The Answer" is by no means metalcore, in its approach or its sound. Containing all the elements traditional American hard rock should possess-crunching, yet melodic guitar, shouty yet harmonic vocals, and ever quicker blasts of double bass to add to the fray. Most bands, while admittedly sounding similar at least manage the sound with precision and calculated, serious efforts, with is most certainly something that Five Finger Death Punch do not do. Even their name was described as by lead guitarist Zoltan Bathory "A mix of classic Chinese action films and martial arts"
In fact, what Five Finger Death Punch have created with their second outing is a genre pleaser, that is aimed to get as many fans over as possible into their group of loyal "Knuckleheads", especially with the future of bands like Slipknot in doubt. And thats about it. At no point in its entire 48 minutes or so playing time does this album do anything revolutionary, anything interesting, anything distinctive. Apart from swear a hell of a lot on some of the album's bruiser tracks. Opener "Dying Breed" is easily this albums best attempt to sound musically gifted. Some furious drumming, great guitar work and melodies are all spoiled, only a tad mind, by Mr Moody's attempt to sound the most pissed off man in metal. What they try to create is an angsty anthem, and while they on the whole succeed, lyrics that did Pantera justice some 17 years ago do not do so now.
Despite Five Finger Death Punch's attempts to remain the archetypal american hard rock band, there are also some surprising, and uplifting attempts on this album to have a stab at the cluttered American rock-radio market. "Hard To See" has a souring chorus and is a rare beast in that it contains no explicits from Moody, "Far from Home" is a good acoustic number, and perhaps proves that Moody's voice is now, when he isn't yelling, one of America's best. Perhaps the band get this mix just right on the 4 minute epic "My Own Hell", containing some unusually haunting lyrical and guitar work that easily make it the stand out track of the album. Another example is "No-one Gets Left Behind" that has a marching beat, harmonising guitars and angry vocals, plus a good, but nothing new breakdown.
As mentioned above, however, what this is, at best is an above average thrash album. While at times Moody soars above the music to reveal himslef as a potentially lethal weapon, most of the time he fits right into this melee of guitars and drums. Plus, his lyrical content rarely rises above sub-par. Perhaps the best example of this is on closer "War is The Answer". Opening with a truly menacing guitar, it degenerates into a lot of pissed off sounding instruments and vocals. "You little trendy ***in bitch!" howls Moody, trying to sound angry, but it is merely laughable. He continues in the same frame of mind in "Bulletproof" with "You can't shake me down, I'm ***in' bulletproof!". Again, while the genre hasn't exactly given us the next Freddie Mercury, compared to this, everything else wins the egg and spoon race hands down.
What FFDP have given us is an album that rarely rises above some other angry bands on the American scene. It simply blends into a crowd stuffed full of mediocre acts, and until Moody raises his game and Bathory gives us some more examples of the dazzling guitar work that is nowhere near enough present on this album, that is, unfortunatly it has to be said, where this band will stay.
Recommended Tracks:
1. Hard To See
2. No-one Gets Left Behind
3. My Own Hell
4. Canto 34
