Five Finger Death Punch - War is the Answer

Death Punch's first album was very promising, with some seriously good riffage and anger being expressed in a effective way without losing any sign of melody, and the follow up to 'Way of the Fist' does not let down the momentum. If anything, Death Punch capitalize on everything that worked and have produced a great new work, War is the Answer.

The album starts off with undoubtedly my favourite track, Dying Breed. Not only does the guitarist (with his awesome name Zoltan) show off his mastery of the axe with the fast paced, thrashy riffs, but pulls off some seriously good solos, and Dying Breed couldn't show this better. The solo is one of my favourite of all time and it won't fail to bring out the air guitarist in you. What's more impressive is that he keeps pulling off technical and melodic solos in just about every song, even the tracks that focus more on the thrashy-ness and less on the melody. The vocals are still up to scratch, keeping their cleans on choruses, and without it the signature sound would probably be gone. The vocalist generally shows some singing talent, he can hit notes well and has a lot of clarity, even after a long verse of thrash scream/shouting. As well as the emotional feel which hits in most choruses, there are a few acoustic elements, in songs such as Far From Home and Crossing Over. This is a style the band can pull off well, mainly due to the vocalist's flexibility. The album continues in a balanced way, exploring speed and the 'mindless' touch necessary for thrash but also tunefulness just at the right times, before finishing with the undeniably kickass duo of Bad Company and the title track War is the Answer

It is worth noting that this album is groove metal, it's not a massive change from the first album's thrash so die-hard fans of the first album don't worry, in fact I think it works with their 'badass' nature which they can do well. Some of their songs, such as 'Bulletproof' are incredibly moshable with a beat-the-crap-out-of-you attitude, and only make the contrast with the softer or acoustic tracks better.

Overall, Five Finger Death Punch have effortlessly improved upon their last album, and haven't let down their fanbase. They know what they do well, and they know how it can always be improved. This is one of the best things I have heard released in 2009 and would recommend to most metal listeners, and even some hard rock fans.

Five Finger Death Punch - The Way Of The Fist

Woah
That's pretty much this album summed up in one word. Awesome melody, vocals, composition, everything really. This is one the best albums I've heard in a LONG time, and I'm sure most people will agree with me. Being a groove/thrash metal band, I wasn't really expecting much, just the usual stuff. I more or less just got the album because the band had a funny name. But well the band don't seem to be out there to make people laugh. Funnily enough, the singer used to be the singer for Motograter, whose album I got because they painted themselves and sounded funny. It turns out Motograter were pretty dam serious as well unfortunately... but for those Motograter fans out there, if such things do exist, then well the vocalist is pretty much the same, just he uses harsh vocals a lot more then before but anyway the songs tend to be 2/3 harsh vocals 1/3 singing, most of which is done during the choruses. The songs have a good amount of guitar solos, though I'm not too keen on their guitar solos for sum reason. The lyrics are those classic metal lyrics that talk about the problems they have with other people and themselves. Well on the most part anyway.

In conclusion, this album is DEFINTLY worth buying no matter which type of metal you like....unless you ONLY like grindcore or something...I would give it 5/5 stars, BUT I give it 4.5/5 because I feel its just kinda missing that extra something, and so it JUST misses the "one of the best albums ever" mark. Still, it's worth buying.