From First To Last

Throne To The Wolves

Written by: TL on 13/04/2010 23:36:54

When From First To Last returned to the limelight with their self titled album in 2008, the band had been absent and through a storm of shit, losing their poster-boy vocalist, their bassist and their label deal, yet fortunately, they managed to pull off a rather convincing rallying cry, even if I did maybe overgrade it by a mark or so, given that the record has hardly seen any rotation through my headphones since then.

Back then, the band seemed to be ripe with positivity and excited with being back in the business of making music, so it is somewhat of a surprise to me to find that bitterness seemed to have caught up with them now, on the follow up "Throne To The Wolves". Essentially, FFTL's sound has been dipped in industrial additions, loaded up with malice and pumped into arena-rocking songs that pack heavy ass punches in places, and seems ready to tear the audience a new one in general.

It's too bad however, that it quickly becomes a little bit tiring to listen to. Don't get me wrong, there are handful of solid hooks, for instance in songs like "Elvis Said Ambition Is A Dream With A V8 Engine" (my favourite so far), "G.R.I.T.S" and "You, Me And The Significant Others", but they are only solitary moments of quality in a blurry sea of less impressive ones. The scaling guitar riffs, that race back and forth behind the walls of chords, quickly start to lack identity, as does FFTL's various rants against women and friends and the music industry and whatever, and no amount of electronic mood-setting (see; "Soft War") can repair this.

Overall, I'm probably being harsher on "Throne To The Wolves" than it actually deserves, because on the upside, it is a record of character, which is more than can be said of the sounds presented by more recent traders of similar stylistic goods, and it does quite easily manage to get your head bobbing and your memory clinging to various parts. It's just that, at the end of the day, when the album has run its course, it's not one that offers a whole lot of things that seem worth coming back for. It's the kind of thing that can hold your attention for its duration, but only provided that you don't think of something better, of which there is also plenty around these days, even within this genre that I otherwise like to criticise.

7

Download: Elvis Said Ambition Is A Dream With A V8 Engine; G.R.I.T.S; You, Me And The Significant Others, The He-man Woman Haters Club
For The Fans Of: A Thorn For Every Heart('s last EP), The Used, Greeley Estates (@ "Go West Young Man, Let The Evil Go East")
Listen: myspace.com/fftl

Release Date 16.03.2010
Rise Records

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