ALBUM REVIEW: Road Through Hell – The Federal Empire

In this weird time for the music industry thanks to the coronavirus, it’s important more than ever for people to support bands and artists. It’s also important for the truth to get out and allow amazing music to shine instead of the mediocre sounds that rely on catchy sounds and nothing else. With that said, THE FEDERAL EMPIRE release their album, Road Through Hell, marketing it as tongue-in-cheek lyrics with anthemic vocals. Did they do anything interesting to go deeper than ‘catchiness’?

Well, not really, no. There’s not a nice way to put this, but every song sounds like they copied and pasted the same musical accompaniment with only minor changes. It all sounds like they could be behind an advert for computers or clothing, it’s all very generic. Sure, it might stay in your head for a few hours, but earworms do not make an album great. Especially as the album goes on, each track becomes forgettable and blander than the last. 

But surely the ‘tongue-in-cheek’ lyrics do it justice, right? Does bland backing music mean that the focus can then be on excellent lyrics? Well, that’s not the case either. The lyrics can be forgettable as well, and if they’re memorable, it’s for embarrassing reasons. For example, in The Way That I Do, the lyrics sound like they’re from that typical ‘nice guy’, saying that they’re better than their love interest’s boyfriend. In Doing Time, the lyrics feel inappropriate because it feels like the song is saying “let’s go to prison because we’re so in love it should be illegal”. It’s possible that the joke is lost, but it feels tone-deaf and weird to theme a love song about going to jail for it. The rest of the songs don’t have anything memorable to say with the topics they want to talk about, and it’s not helped by the bland vocals. Sure, the reverb is turned up to 11 to make it seem like a crowd is behind them, but that’s the same trick done by MUMFORD & SONS and IMAGINE DRAGONS, and they haven’t had the best track record in their catalogue either. 

Overall, this is not the best foot forward from THE FEDERAL EMPIRE. There’s nothing really memorable on the record and the moments that do is because it feels awkward to listen to. The members may have had success outside of this group in their own projects, but together, it does not produce music that makes a difference or is unique. It feels like this album wanted to be everyone else except for this group, and it’s sad that the potential is there, but the actual effort isn’t. 

Rating: 3/10

Road Through Hell is out now via Sumerian Records.

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