ALBUM REVIEW: The Path – Fit For A King

Metalcore is the genre that stubbornly refuses to die. Critics have been talking about its imminent demise for over fifteen years, but here we are 2020 and there’s still no sign of the end. Bands like BURY TOMORROW, WHILE SHE SLEEPS and BLEED FROM WITHIN have all continued to pump out decent albums and the unstoppable rise of PARKWAY DRIVE has been a joy to behold. Despite having five albums to their name and a devoted stateside following, FIT FOR A KING have yet to make a significant dent internationally. The Path is their sixth full-length and has a good chance of changing that, even though it does literally nothing new.

Put simply, if this is the first time you’ve encountered FIT FOR A KING, you’ve still heard The Path before. You’ll hear it again next year, but the songs will have different titles and be performed by someone else. This is identikit metalcore from people who spent their summers at The Warped Tour seeking out the heavier bands. If you’ve so much as glanced at the back catalogue of any of the bands name-checked in the first paragraph, The Path will hold no surprises.

However, it still rules. FIT FOR A KING stick rigidly to the rulebook yes, but that’s because they love it and see no reason to do any re-writes. The Path is an absolute riot. A predictable and workmanlike one perhaps, but a riot nonetheless. If you like your breakdowns chunky, your choruses catchy and your lyrics earnest, the Texans might be your new third-favourite band.

Songs like The Face Of Hate and Breaking The Mirror manage to get the blood pumping, even as they stubbornly refuse to try out anything new. They are utterly pulverising metalcore bangers, designed to whip a crowd into a frenzy and they succeed admirably. Annihilation is pure testosterone-charged pit-rage, Stockholm ventures close to full-on deathcore and Locked (In My Head) is a soaring, emotive singalong.

In fact, even the one brief attempt at a curveball isn’t as ground-breaking as they’d have liked. Midway through the track listing, God Of Fire turns up and adds a distinctive electronica influence to the power chord smashing. It’s a stuttering, discordant effort but try as it might to switch things up a bit, it’s not as inventive as it wants to be. Again though, it’s a great song and the guest vocals from CRYSTAL LAKE’s Ryo Kinoshita will make fans of all things ‘core very happy.

There are a couple of missteps in here. Louder Voice for instance has an overly cliched chorus and doesn’t do itself any favours with the brief spoken word part at the beginning either. If you’re going for a thought-provoking quote, it’s better not to sound like the Patrick Swayze-shaped nonsense guru from Donnie Darko. They could have done with a better finale than Vendetta as well. It’s a perfectly fine, meat and potatoes metalcore song, but doesn’t end things on a big enough note. These are the last two tracks and while it could have ended better, everything up until this point does a bang-up job. All things considered it’s a damn fine album.

The Path may be well-worn but it’s worth taking all the same. FIT FOR A KING don’t do originality, but they write great songs and some of these cuts will be stuck in your head for days. They’re very easy to like too and it’ll only take a couple of spins before the hooks are dug in deep. This is refined, professional and if you can make it to the end without wanting to find a stage to jump off, you’re made of stronger stuff than us.

Rating: 7/10

The Path is out now via Solid State records. 

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