Escape the Fate - This War is Ours
Record Label: Epitaph Records
Release Date: October 23, 2008
I was recently browsing the vast information abyss called the Internet, making my daily rounds when I came across the torrent for the new Escape The Fate album. I became instantly curious as to what direction this band had taken since their debut, Dying Is Your Latest Fashion, and debated listening to it. I desperately tried to talk myself out of listening to this album, but curiosity won and I indeed took a listen. But, before all that let's get a few things out of the way.
Escape the Fate have been becoming famous in the past couple of years for:
1. Great hair!
2. Their lead singer killed some guy or something.
3. Making scene kids shit themselves.
4. Molesting girls at their shows.
5. Flashing their dicks at venues.
Anyway, armed with new lead vocals provided by formerly Bless The Fall Craig Mabbit, one less guitar, and John Feldmann as a producer, Escape The Fate attempted to craft something that would pay their bills for a few months before having to spew out more distasteful music. I'm sure you're wondering, what did these scene kids gone glam-rock create? Well, scene kid glam-rock music.
The album kicks off with the anthem "We Won't Back Down." Typical Escape The Fate. The guitarist comes off as mildly intelligent at least, but that's not saying much. The new lyricist, or whoever writes this garbage, is still confused. Very confused.
It's time to forget
What makes sick
Deep inside of me
It's time to forget
What makes sick
Deep inside of me
Yeah!
I know, don't let them overwhelm you with their profound wisdom. Why can't this band create decent lyrics? They're not new to recording at this point, they had recorded one EP and one full album before coming into this, and they still are drop dead terrible at creating anything close to sincere and meaningful lyrics. Anyways, the first song is just your typical track one for this kind of band. Fast paced, overly distorted guitars, drums don't sound too terrible, can't really hear the bass but whatever.
So, I let the first track slide. Maybe they can recover in the next few tracks.
"On To The Next One" sounds like pretty much any pop punk song made in the last five years, but with more technical guitar work, except for one thing: the lyrics are still weak. For example:
NOW YOU'RE GONE!
And you're on to the next one
This time I got to live without you
Thats just the way it has to be
This time I got to live without you (whoa oh)
And your on to the next one.
Well let's face it, that was a joke. Did Craig Mabbit even write these lyrics? His previous work in Bless The Fall almost seemed promising, but this is just absolute rubbish.
Essentially, that is the recurring flaw with this album. The lyrics are mediocre at best and can't stand up to the rest of the bands ability, which isn't hard to do, might I add. I'm trying to be as generous as possible, but it's just that bad. While this album has its times that make you believe it could get better, it doesn't. There's barely any outstanding tracks on this album at all, and pretty much after the scream fest during “This War Is Ours (The Guillotine Part II),” it just gets boring.
This all climaxes up to their last two tracks, which I'm pretty sure were written by someone working for Disney. These tracks bear no resemblance to anything else on this album. It's like they made nine tracks and were like, "You know what? Fuck it, we realize we're bad, get someone else to write for us".
Basically, if you liked this bands previous releases, just grab "We Won't Back Down", "The Flood", and "Guillotine Part II" off of itunes. If you've never heard of this band, or have heard them and don't like them, pat yourself on the back and walk away.
I don't know the whole story of what went down with BTF that led to Craig stepping down, and stepping up for Escape the Fate? But even ignoring the music, ETF's become a circus sideshow of drama, and it shocks me that anyone would want to work under that big-top. But at the end of the day, Bless the Fall's a guilty-pleasure I'll admit to liking, and I just feel guilty listening to the soulless crap Escape the Fate's put out
Essentially, that is the recurring flaw with this album. The lyrics are mediocre at best and can't stand up to the rest of the bands ability, which isn't hard to do, might I add. I'm trying to be as generous as possible, but it's just that bad. While this album has its times that make you believe it could get better, it doesn't. There's barely any outstanding tracks on this album at all, and pretty much after the scream fest during “This War Is Ours (The Guillotine Part II),” it just gets boring.
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