The front cover: a trio of grungy punks with boxes and bottles of various beers lying around in front of a broken down car. The inlay: the same dudes with their pants down taking a piss on the side of the road. I might not expect much more than really goofy '90s punk out of the band as a result, but there's something on ...The Nothing that thankfully extends a little beyond that--even if it's not quite fully realized.
Faith City Fiasco is not the easiest of bands to pin down. Granted, the rock 'n' roll flavor, misanthropy and drug references are certainly in stock: Vocalist/guitarist Luke Barnes snarls his words throughout the album, asking in opener "Underdog Anthem" to "just get [him] liquored up quick and [they]'ll be alright" and mentioning in "The Catheter" he has "got a lot of rum and a couple of Morphines." There's a darker and more self-defeated, modern southern rock/hardcore type of hybrid going on, and maybe a bit of a darker Social D-esque undercurrent and aesthetic. It sounds confusing, I know, but that's really how odd the album sounds. It's like a watered-down version of the route Blacklisted might go if they let off those eclectic Swans, Dino Jr. and Nirvana influences.
A look at FCF's own influences reveals that may not be totally off: Blacklisted is in there, as is Every Time I Die, Bars, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster and Modern Life Is War; and that extends to totally random name-checks like Hank Williams III, Minus the Bear, Ludacris and Immortal Technique. Hell, the tone in "Paradise in Flames" nips that of Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under the Bridge" a little bit.
That disarray lends itself all too well to ...The Nothing. It's far from being totally stylistically disjointed, but the band is never that effective at its songwriting. Barnes just sneers relentlessly over driving, distorted guitars that are admittedly thoughtful and relatively dynamic in theory, but nothing on here is honed to a point that's invigorating or overtly compelling. "Stress Test" has a weird mosh part in the middle of it that's soft and pressed kind of flimsy, with an otherwise slower burn that only seems to drag the track down. I'm glad they don't sledge-hammer that part needlessly, but the song as a whole is still anticlimactic. "Interlude" is the most promising of these more languid tracks, with the guitars providing a little more of a demeaning atmosphere and the band traversing sort of a cleaner, more melodic Midnight in America territory.
You can kind of hear what Faith City Fiasco are trying on ...The Nothing, and while relatively admirable it's, ultimately, adamantly indecisive. But this album is far from atrocious and bears a few moments of promise, so you should wait to see how they develop this more.
STREAM
Underdog Anthem
T.S.S.
Turtle Lyncher
Hot Nanny Murder Club
Paradise in Flames
Broke Till Friday