Review Summary: Despite being one of the most consistent bands in post-hardcore, Fear Before ruin their streak by creating one of the worst albums I’ve ever heard.
Fear Before the March of Flames has had one of the most interesting musical careers of the post-hardcore genre: despite substantially evolving their style from album to album, their works have progressively improved. Their third album,
The Always Open Mouth, is widely considered to be their apex, offering a stylized, electronically soaked post-hardcore record with plenty of depth and atmosphere. With the announcement of the shortening of their name to Fear Before, I was excited for their next album, which looked to continue their amazing streak. Their fourth album, however, not only breaks the band’s upward climb of quality, but I can safely say that it is one of the worst albums I have ever heard.
True to their name change, Fear Before’s self-titled album sounds like a completely different band. Everything that made
The Always Open Mouth a rousing listen, including the math-tinged guitar riffs, indie-pop melodies and metallic, futuristic atmosphere, is completely abandoned and replaced with bad ideas, bad singing, bad guitar riffs and bad production. After sitting with this album for two years, trying to see if it would grow on me, I can only conclude that
Fear Before is a complete and utter disaster.
First and foremost, the music on
Fear Before is so painfully uninteresting. Marred by flat production, the guitar riffs all sound boring, as there are really no dynamics or emotions that ooze out of the sound. The thin guitar tone, coupled with the straight-forward, simple guitar riffs, dooms this album outright: when I listen to
Fear Before, there’s almost nothing that captures my ear because there’s really no enthusiasm to get behind. Everything sounds so murky and joyless, and there’s absolutely nothing fun or interesting about the music. It’s painfully clear that Fear Before took absolutely no responsibility in trying to craft a creative, unique soundscape for their fourth album, as the music is completely void of any energy, enthusiasm or passion. Is this really the same band who made the intricate and stylized
The Always Open Mouth?
But as bad as the music is, the vocals on this album are about ten times worse. Dave Marion's droning, sneering, almost monotone delivery on this entire album is flat-out unappealing and adds absolutely no melody or catchiness to the music. Period. What the hell is he doing? It's honestly sounds like there was a conscious effort to make the vocals bad to be more experimental or something, and it just comes off as irritating. Adam’s back-up vocals admittedly add some relief here and there, but even he has the tendency to sing the music any damn way he sees fit, and it’s often for the worse. It really sounds like Dave and Adam are trying to top each other for who can sing the worst, because there are some passages where the vocals are so
off that it’s hard to think that anyone in their right mind could give their performances the green light. I'm all for "bad" vocals if it fits the music, but this stuff is outright terrible, and when you fit it along to the lifeless music, I can't even see how some people could stand going even 30 seconds into most songs.
While I can praise Fear Before for continuing to progress their sound, their upward climb of artistic growth has crashed and burned with their fourth album. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about this album; I can’t really understand what they were trying to accomplish with their excruciating vocal delivery, boring guitar riffs, dry production and overall absent enthusiasm, but this album is truly one of the most irritating things I’ve ever, ever, ever heard. It’s time for Fear Before to go back to the drawing board, and thankfully for them, there’s no where to go but up.
