Five Iron Frenzy – Upbeats And Beatdowns

Upbeats And Beatdowns

 

Five Iron Frenzy’s debut album starts off with “(The) Old West”, a cutting criticism of the terrible things that happened to many innocent Native Americans back in the 1800′s.

“Where 0 Meets 15″— an old fan favorite— describes how helpless they can sometimes feel when they want to help others.

“Cool Enough For You” is a song directed at the nose-in-the-air people who gave FIF some flak about their lyrics and music style. The band explains that they don’t care, because they aren’t playing to please those types of people.

“Anthem” is a very cutting and cynical song, directed at America. We don’t like (or understand) the basis of this song; but some sort of explanation does come in the lyrics at its end.

“Shut Up” is, well, just those two words.

“Arnold & Willis & Mr. Drumond” is… well, we’re not quite sure what this one’s about (possibly some old TV show?). It’s somewhat funny.

In “Milestone” lead singer Reese Roper criticizes his own prejudices.

“Beautiful America” is another very cutting and cynical song directed at the U.S. (Why they’re picking on the U.S. in this song and “Anthem” we don’t know— there are other countries with these problems, including their native Canada.)

“Combat Chuck” is a very cute and humorous tribute to the eponymous ‘Combat Chuck’.

“Everywhere I Go” is actually a cover of the song by Amy Grant! (She probably never imagined it turning out in a version like this! )

“A Flowery Song” is another fan favorite. It is indeed ‘flowery’, but it’s good.

And the final track is “Third World Think Tank”. This song is extremely metaphorical. (And, although it probably wasn’t meant to be so at the time, a bit chilling in today’s terrorist-aware society.) What we believe the song is saying is to take stock of your life (how you’re living it and what you’ve done) because you don’t know when it’s going to end— so do all of the good that you can while you’re still here.

Afterwards follows a hidden track featuring Combat Chuck’s outtakes and a bunch of silly and crazy sound effects.

In all, this disc is a fair indie first release.

Our rating for Upbeats And Beatdowns: 3 & 1/4 Stars. 3 & 1/4 Stars

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