Review Summary: where the fuck is Vomiting Winter?
Oh look at the disappointment coming from people who have seemed to pretend that
Manipulator doesn’t exist!
In the Unlikely Event, unlike what most may think, is a slightly more consistent Manipulator, that instead of starting out with mediocrity, almost randomly and disorderly digs into filler. The simple point is that the filler of In The Unlikely Event isn’t nearly as bad as the most boring points of Manipulator, but instead, In The Unlikely Event unfortunately proves that The Fall Of Troy is almost incapable of writing a great song anymore.
No doubt, though,
In The Unlikely Event is packed with an unwieldy amount of enjoyable albeit a bit nostalgic riffs for fans. “Panic Attack”, “Straight-Jacket Keelhauled”, and “Battleship Graveyard” prove to be a potent trio, with the former-est of the trio proving to be Fall Of Troy at their poppy and hooky best, the mid showing off an unheard of, grind-like vocal delivery from Thomas Erak, and the latest showing Thom’s nack for combining annoying vocals with massive riffs and twiddles to form a somewhat enjoyable melting pot. Most of the other highlights come in the form of ideas and riffs, not entire songs, like Rody’s thundering vocal performance amidst only one fairly creative riff on “Dirty Pillow Talk”, or maybe a couple of riffs that remind the listeners of the good old days of
Doppleganger when Fall Of Troy mixed their overly technical guitarist with some actual songwriting skills.
In The Unlikely Event suffers mostly when Thomas Erak thinks he has the chops to make an actual pop song. The soft songs were terrible on
Manipulator, and that doesn’t change here. “Nobody’s Perfect”, Fall Of Troy’s worst song since the dreadful “The Dark Trail”, sounds amateurish and over-produced to the point Britney Spears would probably puke, with emotions so fabricated and unreal it’s hard to take it seriously. Sadly, that’s the way every pop song on here song is on
In The Unlikely Event, and that along with some of the worst ideas this side of mixing auto tune and good singers, it just faults the album for its creditability.
In The Unlikely Event isn’t a terrible album, it just has enough good moments to BARELY be considered good, but a lot of moments are fairly awful, and while their aren’t as many as the entire first half of
Manipulator, there aren’t as many good songs here neither. The unfortunate truth is that, while Thomas Erak is still rocking on his guitar, he can no longer write the occasional great song that he was once able to. With some potential still showing on
Manipulator, it seems like there is almost nothing left here and their songwriting is becoming barren. Where could they possibly go next?
