Famous Last Words

Pick Your Poison EP

Written by: PP on 24/05/2012 01:57:37

There's really no middle ground when it comes to electronic metalcore scene music. Either you worship at the altar of bands like Asking Alexandria, Attack! Attack! and others, drooling over their hyper-catchy pop melodies that are constantly interrupted by br00tal one chord breakdown passages for the ultimate compare and contrast effect (as we remember it from high school), or you can't for the love of God understand why anybody would torture their minds and torment their souls with recyclable garbage that shamelessly capitalizes on pretty much every trend in scene music today.

Based on that introduction, you can already start forming your opinions on Famous Last Words and their debut EP "Pick Your Poison", and depending on which camp you stand in, it's either highly probably the next big thing or the worst offender to music yet. The argument for Famous Last Words being the former is easily made: the band's synth-oriented pop melodies are as catchy as they get on a record that wasn't made by Attack! Attack! in the last couple of years, they have a solid high-pitch vocalist, albeit who has a tendency to go a little bit too far on the whiny end of his spectrum, and a sense for writing catchy choruses and a knack for br00tal breakdowns and ripping metalcore sections that cater to pretty much every single person in the trance metalcore scene music crowd. "I'll Get You Next Time Gadget" is impossibly catchy with its bouncy and playful ending, and "Snowmageddon" gives you a taster of what modern scene music sounds like in a nutshell (including its stupid title). Basically, the wet dream for the AA fans on this website (I know you are out there considering the popularity of that one particular review which shall not be mentioned here).

But on the other hand, a seasoned music veteran can't help but think somewhere along the lines of: well, Famous Last Words basically have high pitch (read: whiny), autotuned (read: fake) clean vocals that meet standard metalcore screams (read: generic) and endless breakdowns (read: sigh). These are particularly generic and have the dreaded compressed guitar sound courtesy of Rise Records' worst bands where the sound is completely unnatural as the life has been squeezed completely out of the guitar by forced and mechanical production to its absolute limits. Furthermore, there are inexplicable missing links between the melodic passages and the breakdown sections - shouldn't there be a bridge tying them together or something? The change-over is awkward to say the least - is the word 'flow' not a part of their vocabulary? They are capitalizing on so many of the trends in modern scene music that it feels like they often forgot to write songs instead of how to get into the wet dreams of every teenage scene girl in the entire world.

Now, both arguments are equally plausible. That's the problem. They clearly have really catchy melodies - no-one can deny that - but is that enough? It really depends on the person, and for this scribe, Famous Last Words merely sounds like a clone band of so many other bands doing this same shit for a few years now, even if I am a sucker for a few of the melodies offered on the record.

6

Download: Labyrinth, I'll Get You Next TIme Gadget
For the fans of: Attack Attack!, Asking Alexandria, The Word Alive, Memphis May Fire, I See Stars
Listen: Facebook

Release date 17.01.2012
InVogue Records

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