I've been a fan of a lot of genres of music over the years. I've jumped from electronic, to what I consider to be "classic rock" to rap and even country. Metal remains one of my favorite types of music though and the other day I was listening to a Spotify channel and a band came on called Five Finger Death Punch that in my mind was so terrible that I can't believe anyone listens to it. The lyrics were trite, the singer is not talented, and the music itself seems as though it was pieced together by putting parts of overused riffs from other songs together into one new song.
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Guys! how much gel do you think it would take to cover up my pattern baldness?
When I looked up what these guys look like I wasn't surprised to see that they look just like any manufactured "metal" band thinks they need to look like or were told to look like by their managers / handlers. If you like this band, I'm sorry, but they are just terrible.
I don't know how you would even describe their sound. In this song they are clearly pandering to try to get more fans by having a patriotic song of sorts. While the singer is apparently very pro-military none of the members of the group were ever in the military despite the fact that they try to appear as though they were. I feel like this is a country music tactic that I find deplorable. While they may actually be pro-military I can't help but feel like they are doing whatever they can to try to get some fans the same way that people will become a country music band complete with totally made up backstories just because it is known that country music fans are far more likely to pay for albums and go to shows.
It is rare that a song or a band will irk me so much that I look up their background and as it turns out there are a lot of people out there that consider 5FDP to be the "Nickelback" of metal. Their over-produced sound, their carefully planned "look" and the way that their songs are all about manufactured rage or lost love just doesn't have an ounce of genuine sentiment to it. I could be wrong about this but whenever a band starts going down the road of playing covers on every album, I have hard time believing that they are actually any good at writing material. Covers are dumb on albums and very few of them actually make it. Just think of how awful "American Pie" by Madonna was.
I feel like 5FDP is trying to sound a lot like Disturbed who is one of the few bands to make a cover that was actually worth listening to when they did "Sound of Silence." I think the reason why this song was so popular was because it was completely different than other Disturbed songs and it doesn't hurt when you are covering one of the most beautiful songs of the past 50 years.
Disturbed is another band that I feel has gotten worse over time and have completely run out of ideas but we'll save that rant for another day.
In the meantime if you are a Five Finger Death Punch fan, I mean you no harm, but I think you have terrible taste in music :) .