Reviews
Fireflight
The Healing of Harms
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Add to del.ico.us.Review Date: 2006-07-30
There are some bands you just want to like. It’s either because they sound like someone you already love, or else because they have a cool name. Well, Fireflight don’t have a cool name. But their singer, Dawn Richardson sounds the exact same as Ella Hooper from Australian band Killing Heidi, the band whose debut album went five times platinum in Australia. Unfortunately for Fireflight, their singer may sound like someone in a really successful band, but their music just isn’t as good. It sounds like it, but a poor version of it. I really want to like Fireflight, and gave them a lot of listens. So I may as well continue with this review as I’ve put in so much work already. And it’s not that bad an album.
The album opens with ‘Serenity’, which is an Evanescence style song, but with less angst and more oomph. But the shouty backing vocals just ruin the song, as they do elsewhere on ‘Liar’. When you have a good singer, why oh why, do you need a guy to scream in the background? ‘Waiting’ is a much better song. Mainly because there’s no screaming. The metal influences are notable here, but the song is given that little bit extra by the excellent breakdown section.
‘You Decide’ sums up their mission statement: “Hints of emo-core, modern rock, and progressive metal permeate the record and its style as defined by Fireflight.” Don’t let that put you off though, it’s not actually that terrible. The band are talented enough. It’s just that they’re going the wrong direction with that talent. ‘Star of the Show’ shows that they can make gentle tunes, which Dawn’s voice is much more suited to, and is the direction the band should turn to. The powerful chorus is just powerful enough. It doesn’t try to be “emo-core” or whatever it was the band want themselves to be. And unsurprisingly, the track that I like most is the track that sounds most like Killing Heidi.
The band is on Flicker Records. That’s a Christian Rock label, for those not in the know. They’re joined on the label by a bunch of bands I’ve never heard of either. While the band is not overly religious, the song ‘Liar’ does have some Jesus imagery. The song starts off okay, but suddenly ventures into System of a Down territory. And as we all know, there are far too many SOAD knock-off bands going around at the moment.
The beginning of ‘Attitude’ sounds like a Something Corporate song. It segues into Killing Heidi territory, but doesn’t enter much farther than the demilitarized zone, and stays too much on the wrong side of brilliant. ‘More Than A Love Song’ was in Track-Fu recently, and lost. Which is not surprising, given that it’s not all that spectacular. But nothing spectacular is what thirteen-year-olds who wear black all the time want isn’t it? When I submitted the song to Track-Fu, I was at the stage where I thought the band was alright, because the singer sounded like a singer I really like. In the time since then, I’ve figured out that we can easily deceive ourselves into thinking something is much better than it is. Take your favourite band, when they release new stuff you’ll either think it’s excellent (when it’s more than likely not), or else see it as too much of a departure (which everyone else will think is a good thing). And by the way, I’m taking it that your favourite band is Evanescence. If it is, you’ll love this. Now when’s the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack out? Cause some of this could definitely fit on there. Especially the appropriately titled ‘Action’. Do you think they might have done that on purpose? The chorus of ‘Action’ goes “We’re looking for some action”. Well, so am I. But the action I’m looking for won’t be found here.
Tracks to Download: The album Reflector by Killing Heidi. But if you must, get ‘You Decide’
Score: 5.3
On their myspace page, Dawn says that “We dont sound like much else out there right now because we all come from different places, and our sound meets somewhere in the middle.” Unfortunately, she’s wrong. They sound like an Ella Hooper-fronted Evanescence.
- Ronan Hunt-Murphy