Review Summary: Why does a meal with great ingredients taste so stale?
At every turn on
Strength in Numb333rs, Fever 333 seem to be on the cusp of doing something great. They have all the ingredients for making the scorching political and musical statement that they seem so keen on broadcasting, and every so often that potential actually manifests itself. There are brilliant moments to be found all across the album, where the riffs of Stephen Harrison, beats of Aric Improta, and vocal mania of Jason Butler check all the boxes and live up to the expectations that the band's members bring with them from their previous projects. Unfortunately, those moments are contrasted with a lackluster production philosophy. So much of the album’s runtime is funneled through a hip-hop filter that strips away any musical character and leaves the listener with an abundance of vocals and lyrics that simply can’t carry the weight that’s asked of them.
It’s tricky to balance a fusion of hip-hop and hardcore, and Fever 333 deserve credit for when they do it right. They find genuine success in the album’s early tracks, where the genres seem to complement each other. “Burn It” and “Prey for Me” are appropriately anthemic and the electronic elements feel like the flourishes that they should be. When the second part of “Prey for Me” (the not-so-cleverly-named “3”) kicks in, that balance gets thrown woefully off-course. There are hip-hop parts, there are hardcore parts, but both are so diluted that the song’s only identity becomes that of cheesy rap-rock vocals. As the album progresses, the separation of these genres into trite imitations gets increasingly frustrating. I’m not sure who it’s meant to appeal to, but no one should be satisfied with the outcome. We know what the musicians recording this music are capable of, but what’s the point if we never actually get to hear their personalities?
Butler’s vocal work is unapologetically the focal point of
Strength in Numb333rs, and in similar fashion to the album’s production, he struggles with finding a reliable balance between his rapping, singing, and shouting. I wholeheartedly support his perspective and political statements, but too often he waters down his message into catchphrases, callbacks to famous events, and generic “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it” cliches. The few times Butler offers legitimately insightful lyrics, like on ballad “Inglewood,” he chooses to rap and sounds like he’s appropriating the style rather than actually utilizing it. The song’s lyrics have the potential to make a monumental statement, and instead they fall flat from an awkward delivery.
In a way, Butler’s shortcomings on “Inglewood” perfectly encapsulate what’s so problematic about Fever 333’s effort here. Nearly every track has the potential to be good and seemingly gets sabotaged by poor decisions along the way. The overbearing hip-hop production tends to only let up in the soaring choruses, which are easily the highlight of the album, but at no point do they deviate from generic power chords and crash cymbal beats. This refraining from the musicians in the band means that the project effectively hinges on how well the frontman performs. Unfortunately on
Strength in Numb333rs, Butler’s performances range from passable to perplexing, and fans of any of the members’ previous works are likely to be more confused than impressed at the results.
