Review Summary: God, Why.
I Set My Friends On Fire are a bit of a unique group. They consist of only two musicians, both multi-instrumentalists, and they make music which is patently ridiculous. Generally considered part of the -core genre group, they combine every band you ever heard of and throw it into a mush-pot of sh*t. I Set My Friends On Fire mix up the electronic-emocore style of Attack Attack!, the silly British accents of Enter Shikari, the catchy melodies and electronic styles of Forever The Sickest Kids and Metro Station, the down-tempo atmospheres of Thrice (from Alchemy Index vols. II and III) and Envy, the beats and terrible "humorous" lyrics of 3OH!3, the song titles of Fall Out Boy, and the awful vocals of The Devil Wears Prada....although, much much more obnoxious.
Okay, so that's a long list. But there's at least a few things on there that would probably sound good if they were cooked up together just right, eh? Well, the problem is, they weren't even cooked. They were, in fact (sticking with our metaphor), simply thrown in one big pot and given one or two whisks before being declared as "done".
The problem is, they tried to make oil and water mix. Sometimes, rap works over a simple beat with no actual instrumentation.
However, poorly-done death growls do not. Want an example? Check out
HxC 2-Step or the intro of
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. Now, this band attempts to excuse themselves by claiming that their music is supposed to be bad and even more so, ridiculous. Well okay. Wait. WHY would anyone make bad music intentionally?! Now, even ignoring this fact, and taking the music as something we're supposed to listen to and laugh at, something "so bad it's good"...well, it fails at that too.
Because, this record has redeeming features!
You Can't Spell Slaughter Without Laughter (don't get me started on the song titles) has the occasional brilliant pop-punk melody, or an off-beat moment of true (electronic) beauty a la Thrice's
Digital Sea.
Things That Rhyme With Orange has one of the catchiest melodies to come out of the hardcore scene...well...ever, bringing back memories of famous-for-five-minutes bands Metro Station and All Time Low, whereas
ASL and the albums Interlude contain some genuinely gorgeous passages. Now, rare is it that an album is worsened by having good points, but you see, this album is supposed to be bad. It's supposed to be silly. It's supposed to "so bad it's good." And it's not. Because, while the "hilarious" (read: Utterly disgusting) cover of
Crank That Soulja Boy is so terrible that one would play it for their friends for a laugh, the moments of clarity strewn throughout MOST of the songs in the album kind of force the listener to take the band seriously....which not only makes the awful breakdowns and hip-hop beats laden with death growls seem worse (and out-of-place) by comparison, but it makes them feel less silly and ridiculous and more like something we should be trying to take seriously.
Honestly, and I hate to just bash an album, but this is the absolute worst album I've heard in my life. It earns 1 instead of 0 simply because of the occasional decent sections, but in the whole scope of the record, these just make it even worse.
And one final note: The song titles are terrible.
