Five Finger Death Punch
F8

The guys with the ability to punch someone to death return with a new album, it is called F8 or Fate if you want to unshorten the name of the album. The cover is even uglier than the one they had for the previous album, perhaps the uglier cover indicates more interesting music – or perhaps it isn’t. I do know that they are popular and this, as their previous efforts, have been very successful and charted well in many places. Being popular can be negative on creativity as fans tend to want to hear the same thing over and over rather than wanting anything fresh, therefore many popular bands tend to be cautious or even cowards – but guys that can punch you to death with five fingers cannot fear the rage of their fans, or can they?

I found that the name has more punch than the music that is quite regular American heavy metal, with a touch of nu-metal perhaps. The songs feel built to be commercially viable and at times they feel a bit soulless and sterile, not much variation over the thirteen songs either. Pretty good sound and vocalist, the production is clearly expensive and well-made but nothing about this album really stands out. From the creative standpoint it is an album that doesn’t really offer much, if you know the band or the genre this will give a sense of déjà vu – not very exciting from that perspective. And the album is a bit long as well; ten songs would have been more than enough in my view. This paragraph is the same as I wrote about the previous album, there isn’t really any difference déjà vu for sure.

Pretty good album with radio-friendly and inoffensive songs, lots of surface and not that much substance. Kind of like many modern superhero movies, good effects and filming but no content. You can muddle through it and find it okay, but it will never leave a lasting impression, there is no standout track and you kind of need that if you want to make an impressive album that has no personality or creativity. It seems like they are playing it safe, their cowardly demeanour will probably work for their fans who will like this album. It will probably work for most music fans, at least they will probably not dislike the album.

It is a well-made album with pretty good songs, I write well-made but not well-written for the same reason as painting a replica of some famous painting isn’t a work of art. A great album needs either novelty or fantastic songs, and this album has nothing like that – it is pretty good, but it offers nothing fresh or exciting. It will appeal to their fans and it will probably make them a lot of money and for most people money outweighs the artistic value, and that is quite obvious in this case.

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