Fear Before The March Of Flames are pretty darn neat. Featuring a quartet who are probably younger than you (average age under 20), this lot come from the relative suburbia of Aurora, probably most famous because the Foo Fighters have a song of the same name. Until now that is, because this lot, who cite Botch, Converge and The Blood Brothers as influences (yet sound more like labelmates Alexisonfire, but without the melodies), are probably going to take the States by storm.
‘Odd How People Shake’ is a fucked up record. There’s no real semblance of sense here; it’s organised chaos, a fucked-up post-hardcore orgy that comes across like a gangbang of guitars and drums. If, of course, there ever a combination of such instruments could be made. Chuck in David Marion’s psychotic vocals, which slip from the piercing to the slightly more sane in the blink of an eye, and you have a powerful combination that enthrals and excites in equal measure.
Of course it’s the fact that none of these songs are based on traditional methods which makes it work – check out the weird and wonderful ‘Go Wash Your Mouth, I Don’t Know Where It’s Been’ for a showcase on how to write a marathon effort without ever needing to check the songwriting guidebook for a lesson in how to be clichéd. Three minutes of pure screaming mayhem, with swirling guitars and rampaging basslines, turns into more than three minutes of lo-fi whispering. When it ends, and ‘Given To Dreams’ begins, there’s a wall of feedback and a thudding, but slower, bass riff. Expect the unexpected, with the chaotic ‘Girls Got A Face Like Murder’ and ‘The Lisbon Girls, Oh The Lisbon Girls’ coming across like escaped mental patients on the run from the men carrying the white coats.
If you like Alexisonfire‘s latest opus, but fancy something even more complex and strange, this is the record for you. It does borrow from the likes of The blood Brothers, but there’s an energy and intelligence in the musicianship that sticks out. Anyway, with a song as good as ‘What Happens in Vegas Stays In Vegas’, ‘Odd How People Shake’ is an album that reinforces your belief that heavy music isn’t always pushed down the throats of the MTV executives.
www.marchofflames.com
Equal Vision Records
Paul