Review Summary: I'll be waiting on the brighter side of grey
For the past 13 years, "true metal" band
Five Finger Death Punch have been one of the internet's favorite musical punching bags, conjuring up images of wannabe nu metal kids and irritating rednecks who jack off to the military and deem Trump to be the greatest thing to ever grace the planet since Creed and Hinder. Unlike many of the other internet favorites like Bieber (and even Nickelback to some extent), Five Finger Death Punch never upped their game; in fact, following
American Capitalist, the band's quality plummeted like there was no tomorrow. And
F8 doesn't exactly fix that, but it brings back, at the very least, their ability to make an album you can actually make it through.
Sobriety has done wonders for Ivan Moody, at least sonically. His singing is by far the strongest it's been since
American Capitalist, and his unclean vocals have morphed into a surprisingly decent Jeremy McKinnon soundalike. What sobriety hasn't helped is his lyrics; in fact,
F8 features the laziest songwriting in the entire band's discography, a surprising accomplishment given how bad
And Justice For None was in that department. Lyrical content has been reduced to mind-boggling stupidity such as "I'm a little bit off today, something down inside me's different / Woke up a little off today, I could tell that something's wrong / I'm a little thrown off today, there's something going on inside me / I'm a little bit off today, a little bit off today", "You're the one on the magazine covers and everyone loves ya / You're the one everyone wants to be like, but no one can be", and the pinnacle of all god-tier lyricism (move over, Lennon and M cCartney):
"F**k!
I know you better than you f**king do!
I've seen your kind before and I ain't impressed at all!
You're a snitch, you're a cheat!
You're a liar and a thief!
You're the weakest of the herd and you'll get what you deserve!"
-"This Means War"
The biggest improvements over past albums are the instrumental department: Zolthan Bathory and Jason Hook have been re-energized, and present throughout
F8 are some of the strongest riffs ever conceived by this band. Bassist Chris Kael provides extremely competent bass playing throughout, and Charlie Engen lays down some fairly solid drumlines, despite being slightly below previous drummer Jeremy Spencer.
Unfortunately, musicianship is where all deserved praise of
F8 ends. Kevin Churko continues to brickwall everything he breathes on and continues to record drums out of his home toilet, strangle any semblance of bass tones to death, and then put the guitar volume on steroids. The mixing and mastering does the album absolutely zero favors, either; it all still sounds like a loud, clipped amateur job. When it comes down to it all, from an instrumental standpoint
F8 actually is a fairly strong radio-metal release, but thanks to the crippling decisions made by Moody and Churko it will forever roam in the depths of average music hell.
