Review Summary: Wub wub wub...
You know, for a rather uniquely strange band such as Family Force 5, you’d think something interesting might’ve come out almost every time they released something new. Apparently, their “official” style comes out to be something called “crunk rock.” It’s like a mixture of nu-metal, rock, electronica, and in some cases, even some rap-metal. Yeah, it’s a stupid genre name, I know, but what is actually interesting about FF5 was their debut album
Business Up Front/Party in the Back, which no doubt has been their best release since they first formed. In a lot of ways, it was actually a lot of fun, whether or not you were a Christian. In any case, they did started going downhill when it came to trying to change their sound. Granted,
Dance or Die was a step in the right direction, but it never really captured the attention that made their first album as good as it was. Then we get
III which was nothing more than to make a more pop-rap, Drake kind of sound that would’ve more or less targeted pre-teen girls rather than fans. Now we have
ReAnimated, a remix album filled to the brink of dubstep remixes, unoriginal content, and of course, guest artists.
What we have here is essentially a Christian version of Linkin Park’s most recent compilation album,
Recharged even if it came after this. It’s really nothing more than jut dubstep remixes by other artists with very little to offer in terms of both new song material, and originality. Any actual “new” songs here sound as if they played the songs first and then just let someone remix the hell out of it, turning into nothing more than just a pile of trash that could make a dog beg for mercy. The first two songs are actual newer original songs by the band, and that’s the unfortunate thing about them.
Chainsaw is really just a piece of garbage, letting the techno get in the way of vocals and actual instrumentals that are placed in here, if any at all. In fact, I highly doubt any of the band members actually did anything, or at least tried anything to help bring out their sound out, but Solomon Olds, the main producer, literally takes control of the whole song process filling almost every single song with electronic trash sounds. Even the guest artist, Tedashii, is barely even recognizable in the song, and doesn’t add anything at all to make it better.
Phenomenon isn’t any better either, and to make matters worse, it’s practically the most repetitive song in this entire album. It’s the only original song without any guest artists and you’d think they’d come with something more interesting, but no. It’s the same thing as last time, except the lyrics practically repeat four times in a row. The other original song,
The Next Level is a much heavier, bass-loaded song, but that doesn’t make it any better. The song itself just sounds as if Skrillex remixed it rather than sounding original and it just doesn’t feel right.
As for the other remixes, there’s isn’t that much to talk about. Probably one of the only things in this compilation of crap that is actually interesting is that all of the remixes are created by someone else. And with that, you could surmise that every song might sound different. However, most of them are just nothing but the typical electronic, computerized B.S. that I’m pretty sure you could end up doing on FL Studio, if you had a damn good amount of time. They literally sound the same almost all the time.
Superhero is nothing more than just a typical dance beat with mixed vocals and trashy sounds that end up turning into a full head-on six minute song.
Wobble is the same deal, only slower and shorter…and more painful. Being that “Wobble” was probably one of the worst songs on
III you know for a fact that a remix of it would only add to the frustration of what it is, a really, really bad song. And to just add salt to the wound, you have the
Love Addict remix. With it probably being their most well-known and most popular song, you would expect something like this to happen, but like all of the other songs; it’s nothing more than the typical dance “bust-a-move” beat and is practically the same thing all over again.
The only remix that actually sounds good is the last one,
Put Ur Hands Up as it’s the least techy of the songs. In fact, it sounds more of a piano/acoustic version of the song, and ironically enough, it actually sounds really nice. The vocals are clean, there’s no noise to make you deaf, and it sounds like there’s actual instruments being played here. You know, if they end up doing something like this more often, there might be actual likability in the future for FF5. Even so, it’s actually really weird for them to remix this song in particular as the way it is, considering the fact that it’s one of their more “fun” songs from their first album. If it was another song like “Not Alone” (which might actually sound nice if there was an acoustic version of it), then I might find it more likable.
Family Force 5 at this point is really scraping from the bottom of the barrel here. Now pretty much having to depend on other artists to do their songs for them is just plain sad. Now were these guys perfect? No of course not, but the one thing they knew extremely well what to do and how to do it was to have a damn good time while performing their songs. And as a fan of these guys, I might as well just say that they've just lost all of their steam right about now. It’s pretty much now a “Damned if you do – damned if you don’t” scenario here. And in this case, it just doesn’t play out in the way their fans want. Because if they continue on the path that their going on, then they will not going anywhere and will just fade away fast and might never be remembered again.
