ALBUM REVIEW: This Is Where You’ll Find Me – Fellowcraft
Alternative rock may be one of the most useless terms in music. It’s a label which applies to such a wide array of bands that it’s impossible to describe any specific sound. In the case of FELLOWCRAFT, it appears to refer to a smoky, hard-hitting and hook-laden bluesy rock in the vein of bands like AUDIOSLAVE and PEARL JAM. It’s a concoction the band themselves sum up as ‘indie-prog’ – something which doesn’t make things much clearer either.
This Is Where You’ll Find Me is the band’s third full-length album. It follows their 2016 debut, and 2018’s somewhat confusingly-titled Three. It’s also not a broad departure from those records, instead carrying on the band’s brand of radio-ready American rock. If anything, things are a little beefier this time around, with the band’s grunge influences turned up especially.
The band shoot right out the gate with opener Coyote And The Desert Rose‘s massive, swaggering riff. What follows is a driving melodic hard rock track, with an arena-ready chorus and a spaced-out psychedelic outro jam. Second track This Is How The World Ends maintains a similar desert feel. This one’s a little moodier and smokier, and features some lovely backing vocal harmonies in the song’s choruses. It ticks along nicely with an impassioned vocal performance from Jon Ryan MacDonald and a lengthy emotive guitar solo. The song eventually comes to a stunning break, dropping to delicate pianos and strings behind powerful vocal harmonies which repeat the album’s title as a single lyric. It’s easily the best moment of the entire album, and segues smoothly into another stirring guitar solo.
Sadly, the record never quite hits the heights of these first two tracks again. No one song is terrible, but the run of tracks from three to six in particular just feels a bit safe and middling. All are pretty mid-paced, and each are probably a touch too long as well. That isn’t to say they’re completely without merit though. Most of them offer up some more impressive guitar solos, most of all on Last Great Scotsman II. Also, fifth track I Will Not Accept The Truth is a little more menacing, and Make No Sound has a scuzzed-out riff FU MANCHU would be proud of. Overall though, this mid-section just doesn’t feel particularly original or imaginative.
One problem with This Is Where You’ll Find Me in general is the album’s often cheesy lyrics. Perhaps the worst offender is I Will Not Accept The Truth. While surely intended to read as a defiant anthem, and a rebuttal to the band’s detractors, lines like “I will not accept your truth, I will not believe your lies, I will not acknowledge pain, I will survive” come across as pretty uninspired and derivative. That’s hardly the only moment either. Even the comfortable high point of This Is How The World Ends falls into a similar trap.
In their seven years as a band, FELLOWCRAFT have built up quite the live reputation. It’s something which has seen them share stages with artists as varied as STATIC-X, AMON AMARTH and DEEP PURPLE. It’s also something which makes sense when we get to the album’s seventh and eighth tracks. These two are live versions of Get Up Young Phoenix and Proliferation Nation from the band’s first and second albums respectively. Both inject the record with a much-needed rawness that really helps this kind of music. On the first, MacDonald gives a fiery vocal performance as the guitars buzz with a real grit behind him. After this, Proliferation Nation significantly ups the beef of the original. With its political message and driving bassline, it even evokes the likes of RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE.
While the live tracks are a welcome addition to the record, it’s hard to say the same for the album’s closer. This takes the form of an acoustic demo of earlier highlight This Is How The World Ends. There is something interesting about hearing this track in such a raw and unrefined state, but ultimately it feels like it would’ve been best left for a bonus edition or for the band’s Facebook page.
This Is Where You’ll Find Me is definitely a mixed bag. There’s a sense that, had FELLOWCRAFT released this as a four-track EP with the opening two songs and the two live additions, we’d be talking about something pretty great. As it’s not, this is instead a record which struggles to maintain attention over its 42-minute runtime. Radio rock fans will probably be happy enough – after all there’s definitely nothing offensive about any of it – but those looking for something more imaginative can give this one a pass.
Rating: 6/10
This Is Where You’ll Find Me is set for release on February 26th via self-release.
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