Boy, sometimes it doesn’t pay to leave a CD sitting in the “to
\nbe reviewed” pile for too long. Once in a while, a “Spinal
\nTap”-like occurrence will happen, leaving the band that exists in
\nreal life different than what you’ve got to work with on the
\nalbum.<\/p>\n
Case in point: Canada’s Fueled By Ignorance, whose eight-song
\ndebut
\nTears<\/i> came out last year. (For the record, I’ve had it about
\ntwo months, so it’s not like I got it day-of-release and sat on it
\nall this time.) Since this disc was cut, the band has lost bassist
\nT. James (who died in a car crash almost a year ago), drummer Shawn
\nGairdner (or is he back? I can’t tell the way the news is
\npiecemealed together on the band’s home page) and guitarist Adrian
\nCastley. They’ve also left the label that
\nTears<\/i> was released on, as well as their management company –
\nI’ve heard of creative rebirth, but
\nthis<\/i> is ridiculous.<\/p>\n
It’s a bit more ridiculous when you realize that Fueled By
\nIgnorance, while still a young band with a lot of musical growth to
\nstill achieve, seemed to be onto something. While they didn’t have
\nquite the organization as other bands of their style (Tool, Korn),
\nthey do have the energy and the determination that comes through in
\nthe music, and that counts for a lot on this first effort.<\/p>\n
My biggest complaint with this disc is a common one: It’s too
\nshort! The eight songs clock in at under a half-hour, leaving me
\ncurious about what this band is truly capable of. (Then again,
\nTool’s first effort
\nOpiate<\/i> was the same way, so I guess I shouldn’t complain too
\nmuch.)<\/p>\n
As for the music, it’s pretty good songwriting, and the
\nperformances are better than one would expect from a debut. The
\nbass lines of James (Todd James Wickstrom) make you realize that
\nhis death was a big loss to this band. Gairdner’s trap work is
\ncrisp, while Castley’s guitar lines alternate between chopping
\nleads and crunching rhythm riffs. Vocalist Simon Springer is not
\nthe strongest singer in this genre, but he more than makes up for
\nany shortcomings with the intensity of his performances on
\nTears<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Tracks like “Gallstone,” “Klutz” and “Crumbling” all slap the
\nlistener into submission, demonstrating that Fueled By Ignorance is
\nmore than capable of holding their own in a musical field that is
\nstarting to get crowded. What is special about the band is that
\nthey are able to carve their own niche without sounding like a
\ncarbon copy of their peers. I may make the Tool comparison, but
\nthankfully, you won’t hear a second rate Aenima performance.<\/p>\n
Drawbacks? There are one or two – namely, it takes some time to
\nreally get into Fueled By Ignorance. “Unleash” is an okay track,
\nbut it doesn’t immediately grab your attention until well over
\nhalfway through the song. Unfortunately, when you’re an
\nup-and-coming band fighting to get the attention of a new audience,
\nyou need to come out of the gate swinging, and Fueled By Ignorance
\ndoesn’t quite do that… yet.<\/p>\n
In a ssense, Fueled By Ignorance has a harder battle ahead of
\nthem because of all the upheaval in the band. Had the same lineup
\nstill been together today, they would have had a solid anchor in
\nTears<\/i> to help them build the band into something stronger.
\nHowever, with only one member from this recording session left, the
\nband is almost back at square one. Nevertheless,
\nTears<\/i> is a good, though flawed, effort that does make me
\ninterested in seeing where this band is going to go in the near
\nfuture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6511],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-38655","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-fueled-by-ignorance","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38655"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}