Review Summary: It’s metalcore by numbers from the Californian quintet.
Why can’t people just admit that metalcore is dead? There seems to be an abundance of mediocre bands attempting to keep this once popular genre alive, despite the fact that the appeal has worn off by now. The latest band to step up to plate is
Five Finger Death Punch (FFDP/5FDP), hailing from sunny Los Angeles. It’s no surprise that they’ve garnered praise from the public since their songs are a mixture of one-note riffs, basic metal drumming, and a sing/scream/sing vocal structure, therefore it’s easy to pick up and listen to. Now, I wouldn’t mind this, if it hadn’t been done a hundred times before, and better. As such,
The Way of the Fist is essentially a generic metalcore album with nothing new or interesting to bring to the table.
Opening with
Ashes the band kicks off with double-bass drumming, a simple riff with an underling melodic , and some screamed verses, before launching into a sung chorus. About 2 minutes in they break into a bridge, then an uninspired solo, another chorus, and end. Now, lather, rinse, repeat what I just said for every song and you’ve got the entire album. Really, that’s it. Well, they occasionally swap some stuff around, singing in the verse and screaming in the chorus instead, for example.
The guitar work on the album is rather unimaginative, since it basically consists of one-note riffs, melodic sections that follow the vocals, and simple hammer-on/pull-off solos, as I’ve already mentioned. The guitarists rarely step out of their comfort zone, and show no signs of wanting to either. The only song in which they try something different is
The Bleeding, and even then it’s only switching to a clean sound. The bass is inaudible unless you listen very closely, this is most likely because it follows the rhythm guitar which constantly overpowers it.
The drums, while certainly solid and consistent throughout, are for the most part pretty basic in metal standards. Plenty of double-bass everywhere at a constant speed.
White Knuckles demonstrates this perfectly, with it’s speedy breaks in between verses and choruses, where the double-bass is being worked to death while the cymbals are hit at a 4/4 rhythm.
The Bleeding on the other hand gives sticks man Jeremy Spencer a chance to slow down and play the most straightforward drum fill possible before the chorus lets him rip loose with his trusty double-bass, albeit slower than usual.
The lyrics, well, there’s not very much I can say about them except that they either revolve around fighting or how everything is someone else’s fault. “Deleted, defeated everything you‘ve ever been/ No mercy, it‘s the way of the fist” screams Ivan Moody on the title track, while on
Can’t Heal You he sings “You’re the one who made a decision/stuck in a prison, shattered and broken”. To his credit, the vocals are performed confidently with plenty of conviction, despite the awful lyrics, the worst of which belongs to White Knuckles “Sick of being sick and tired, sick of understanding/ Tired of feeling sick to my stomach”.
Unless you’re a diehard metalcore fan then it’s unlikely you’ll enjoy this album. It’s chock full of cliché lyrics, simplistic riffs and solos, and uninspired song structures. Sure, the vocals aren’t half-decent, but that isn’t enough to save
The Way of the Fist from the jaws of mediocrity. The problem is, the songs are infectious and catchy enough to stay in your head for hours or even days. It’s perfectly constructed mainstream metal designed to make the creators rich and famous amongst the masses, and in this day and age that really isn’t enough to keep me, as well as other music fans, interested for too long. Avoid this 45 minute suckfest at all costs.
1.5/5
Recommended
The Bleeding
