Words Jimmy Glinster
Out Now
Have you ever had that Sicksense that you’ve completely forgotten about something?
Well, I just did after realising that I forgot to review the Fools Tomorrow EP that I so eagerly hassled Vicky Psarakis for an early copy of a couple of months back. If you think that name sounds familiar you are correct, Vicky was the lead singer for the very recently disbanded The Agonist. Now, we won’t get into too much into detail about that because that has fuck all to do with the review of this EP, so I’ll just stick to the tunes!
The opening track Feed Them To The Wolves is the very reason I reached out for some early exposure to this EP. Early promo of this this track waived the flag at some kind of a nod to Nu-Metal. Now, early on the dual heavy vocals would mislead you to think this was more of core mash-up type of deal, but then the rapping kicks in and the nostalgia of the early 2000’s comes flooding back in. Mix that with the latter clean vocal passages and you’ve got a mix what I would refer to as alternative-metal or rap metal, the metal genres that got swallowed up by the whole Nu-Metal catch phrase for anything that was actually
good and wasn’t just shitty thrash.
Title track Fools Tomorrow, featuring Billy Grey, possibly the main antagonist of The Lost and Damned Grand Theft Auto series, but possibly not, opens with a broken syncopated guitar riff and is shortly followed by a quick rap verse and then a melodic chorus. The dualling male rapping and clean female vocals blend together well, but also create a great point of difference for the shitfing elements of the track. When the later screams create a call response with the melodic choruses it creates an expansive auditory experience. The opening riffs kicks in a couple of times to keeps the track bouncing.
What I would call a Wes Borland style inspired guitar riff kicks off the proceedings for Invitation which soon becomes a grooving heavy bouncer! Shared screams get the vocals started before once again some tight raps take over the verses. I’d tell you who the male singer is but for some reason no one ever has this info on their online profiles anymore and I’m way too fucking lazy to spend too much time on it. Plus, this track isn’t really letting me get too distracted as it’s vocal hooks and bouncing guitar riffs keep dragging me back in.
A quick tom roll throws Run and Hide into a cyclic guitar riff which is monetarily broken by quick harmonics and then wound down with some melodic overdubs. Once the groove is broken, melodic vocals drag us through a verse before being rudely interrupted with some heavy screams followed by an anthemic melodic chorus. The main riff is super heavy and each time it hits, the song elevates. Another bouncing guitar riff breaks the song before clean vocal melodies and raps weave in and out of each other prior to hitting a heavy breakdown. This one just keeps giving! Banger of a track!
Oh no, this one is an acoustic track. Is it the dreaded end of EP/album ballad? It certainly seems that way. Luckily though, Vicki can sing, and her sweet melodies help me to push through the track instead of just erasing it from my memory and rewinding back to the heavy groovy stuff. I guess we all need a radio friendly single right? The band goes alright too while performing a slower moodier track. Co-vocalist Rob “The Ripper” Fonts doesn’t seem to make an appearance on this track, but I thought I’d take a moment to mention him since I went to the trouble of googling it now that I’m done with this review.
Erase, Rewind.
So, Nu-Metal? Well, technically no, but it sure does have all the flavours and it definitely tickles this ol’ nu-metallers bizkits. The dual vocal attack works so well throughout every track, except that last one where it doesn’t exist, and the band fucking grooves hard but you’ll need to google them if you wanna know who they are. They all have cool nicknames which is also a little Nu-Metal of them. Not that this is Nu-Metal, it is pretty phuckin sick though!
