Five Finger Death Punch, oft given the amazing appellation, “Five Flavor Fruit Punch”, is 1 o’ those bands that isn’t as well known to you fucking normies like Nickelback or Limp Bizkit are, but to geriatric millennials like me who still care ’bout rock music — well, a’least ’nough to make jokes ’bout it — is infamous for how popularly hated it is — so much so that I was able to find 2 separate topics to the same subreddit within the span o’ a year asking why so many people hate this band.

Now, if you’ve read the previous installments in this series, you know that I grew up loving widely-hated bands like “Disturbed in the house we’re droppin’ plates” & “I love it when you call me big” Papa Roach, & e’en had some nice things to say ’bout corny ✝-rock bands like Thousand Foot Krutch & Skillet; so you’ll be horrified when you learn that tho I did moderately enjoy radio singles like “Walk Away” &, uh… ( looks up their singles ) — o yeah, they made a cover o’ that Bad Company song, “Bad Company” — I ne’er really cared that much ’bout them & definitely didn’t get into their albums the way I did Disturbed’s Believe or Breaking Benjamin’s Phobia as a middle-school dweeb. So you can imagine what li’l eagerness I have to visit this band now.

I chose their 1st album, The Way of the Fist, ’cause… I dunno. ’Twas as good as any other album to try. ¿Is it too late to back out & try a funnier album, like St. Anger? Also, “The Way of the Fist” sounds sexual in a way, which makes me giggle like an infant.

1. Ashes

You can tell this is a HARDCORE album by the way it opens with singer Ivan Moody shouting, “¡RIGHT!”, “¡HATE!”, & “¡BRING IT!” in a way that sounds like he’s trying to hold in a burp while doing so.

If you listen to this song, you pretty much listen to almost all the songs on this album: we get arrhythmically shouted verses where Moody vaguely & tritely tells you how badass & destructive he is, followed by choruses where Moody sings ’bout the same thing, but in a mo’ morose & melodic way… ’cept Moody has such a burly voice that it doesn’t work as well as other nu-metal bands, with mechanical drumming that’s fast, but sounds both soft & thudding & squeaky guitars, all o’ which sounds saturated in fluff due to what I can only assume was terrible production or mixing. We get the expected clichés, like describing his temperament as “hair-trigger” with a “heart […] filled with ice” & calling himself a “savage beast” or a “walking 1-man genocide”, which, uh… is a weird brag to make. Committing genocide doesn’t make you tough; — nobody’s going to convince me Hitler wasn’t a bitch-ass ho — it just makes you an asshole.

If you want a much better song ’bout how e’erything the singer touches turns to shit, try this song from Stabbing Westward, the emos who made that song that went, “You can-not save me / I, can’t, even, saaaave myyyyyyyseeeeeelf / so just saaaave yooourseeeeelf”, that you probably heard on the radio a few times back then but didn’t remember ’cause ’twas just an OK song. They’re honest ’bout what bitch-ass emos they are talking ’bout breaking e’erything they touch:

Grade: D

2. The Way of the Fist

Yawn. E’en the music videos are boring. Wow, wrestling & grasping an iron fence.

Behold this Shakespearean opening:

¡break this shit down!
¡zoltan open the sky!

I thought this would be some dorky-ass pagan-myth shit till I looked up & noticed that 1 o’ their producers was apparently actually named Zoltan.

Ugh. If you don’t want to listen to this song — & you don’t want to, let me just spoil that now — but want to imagine what it sounds like, imagine getting a drumstick & just smacking a drum a bunch o’ times while shouting & maybe sorta trying to match a rhythm, but you keep forgetting what that rhythm was, so it keeps changing, but they’re all the same thumping monotony, ¿so who cares?

As for the lyrics… it’s the same shit as the last song. This is the worst time to be “reviewing” these kind o’ lyrics, too: so soon after the release o’ 4 amazing diss tracks by Kendrick Lamar, who sounds like a legit psychopath in songs like “meet the grahams”, which is for some reason in all lowercase ’cause that’s just how much he made them graham crackers shrunk, hearing generic shit like, “strapped with rage, no patience for victims” or “believe it, you need it, face-down on the fuckin’ floor” will ne’er compare to Kendrick calmly telling someone’s 7-year-ol’ son, “Adonis, I’m sorry that that man is your father…”, like Marlon Brando petting a cat.

But since it’s the 2000s, we do get lines like these:

no mercy, you faggot

O, man, we got that Hollywood-Undead-type lyricism.

Actually, the only reason I brought this line up is ’cause o’ this amazing annotation from Genius:

Here Ivan Moody is projecting his homosexuality by calling the target of the song the homophobic slur “faggot”. This, unfortunately, is not helping Ivan’s case in proving that he isn’t gay.

This is e’en funnier, considering a line that comes later:

talk the shit, your ass is mine

Here we learn that said “five finger death punch”, as well as the “way of the fist”, is a deadly fisting.

According to Genius, “[t]he song is considered one of their heaviest songs by many fans of the band”. I mean, yeah, when all your songs are ’bout equally heavy, then all songs are tied for heaviest song by default, so this is, indeed, 1 o’ the heaviest songs.

Grade: D

3. Salvation

It’s a tragedy when you try to make your song sound all badass, but then you start your pre-chorus with “¡IT’S MONKEY SEE, YOU MONKEY DO!”.

I do give this song props for the interesting idea o’ having a solo in the middle o’ the song, ’tween the 2 verses. It’s too bad said solo is just the same stock noodly squeaky notes that e’ery Five Flamingos Doing Puns song has.

Also, this song loses points for its opening riffs sounding like a Nickelback song.

In addition to being vague like the other songs, this song is less coherent than the other songs, which, granted, makes it a bit mo’ interesting. ¿Is this 1 o’ those cliché protest songs against God & religions? ¿What does “I’m no son of your god” mean? ¿Is he insisting he’s not Jesus, famous son o’ the god o’ the most dominant religion in the west? ¿Who accused him o’ such? ¿Or is he singing from the perspective o’ Jesus in a twisted version o’ this Biblical story where Jesus rejects God’s plans for him & refuses to be prince o’er humanity? ¿& what does he mean when he ends this anti-faith chorus with the twist line, “still I find salvation”? ¿Is this a Nietzschean form o’ salvation that comes from man’s own will rather than any external deity?

Or maybe the songwriter just strung a bunch o’ generic metal words round, including vague mentions o’ religious-adjacent phrases like “faith”, “salvation”, & “son of god” without any clear idea themselves what it’s s’posed to mean in the hopes that somebody might futilely fill in the gaping blanks with their own imagination, thanks to humanity’s need to find logic in e’en the most arbitrary, & in the process may mistake this clumsy inarticulation for subtle literary mystery.

Also, the chorus is very boring &, like many songs on this album, sounds almost like whining mo’ than singing, amplified by this band’s incapability o’ rhythmic variety.

Grade: D

4. The Bleeding

This was the 1 song off this album that I recognize from the radio, &, unsurprisingly, it’s 1 o’ the least bad, since e’en the radio has some standards in terms o’ making a song sound catchy ’nough that one might want to listen to it if one were unaware that there is much better music out there. That is what the radio is for & why people who listen to the radio listens to this type o’ music: it’s already on & doesn’t let you change the song, so you just suck it up, especially since you’re probably listening to this shit be drowned out by the noise o’ heavy wind outside the open windows & screaming kids as you’re driving your minivan down an hour-long highway toward your annoying family for Thanksgiving.

For instance, ¡I can actually think o’ positives to say ’bout this song! I actually kind o’ like the justaposition o’ whate’er those melodic notes — ¿some piano? — are that plays thruout the song & the thick riffs. & this song’s verses actually have rhythm to them, with each line starting with slow syllables, building up, & hanging on the end syllables. I also like the breakdown before the bridge. Moody’s singing isn’t good, ’course, — definitely no David Draiman — but his off-key voice kind o’ works here, adding to the frail tone these lyrics are clearly going for.

Now, having said all that, the chorus is just generic shouting & the lyrics are just generic heavy metal words. I mean, the song is literally just called, “The Bleeding”; ¿can you get mo’ generic than that? We e’en have that stock phrase from 2000s butt rock, “you’re my perfect disease”, which I think originates from Nickelback’s “Figured You Out”, where Kroegerbrand sings, “You’re like my favorite damn disease”. In fact, the most damning thing I can say ’bout this song is I think that song is much better than this. That’s not a joke, I genuinely think that song is better than this. Remember, I liked the album that song was from as a kid, & while it, uh, hasn’t aged so well for me, as you can tell by my review, I was still mo’ positive toward that album than I am for this album, & that’s because I would still rather listen to that album than this.

Grade: C

5. A Place to Die

“A place to die” sounds exactly what I’ll need by the time I’m done with the following 9 songs I have to sift thru before I can stop & listen to good music again ( I’m just going to listen to “Euphoria” for the 20th time ).

Actually, this song sounds better than the previous songs — including “The Bleeding”. Then ’gain, that might just be the vodka kicking in numbing my mind. Also, since it’s the hottest part o’ summer, I have a fan blowing full blast on my face, so I’m getting that aforementioned minivan-drive-on-the-highway experience that is the only correct way to listen to Five Fans Drowning Pools. The opening notes have just the right balance o’ pattern & variation & the chorus has this kind o’ catchy “searching…”, & the singing on the bridge actually sounds pretty good, especially when Moody says, “I slowly drift apart…”. I mean, I would still rather listen to a’least 8 different Nickelback songs o’er this, but this is an improvement o’er the 1st 3 songs a’least.

Grade: C

6. The Devil’s Own

I took the trouble to look up Ivan Moody’s childhood life to make sure he wasn’t abandoned as a child, & could find no evidence o’ such, which relieves me, not just for Moody’s own well-being, but also ’cause it makes me feel better for giggling o’er how ridiculous is this melodramatic song ’bout childhood abandonment — which Genius calls “one of the darkest songs on the record” ( ¿if only “one of the darkest”, what are the other potential candidates?” ). Admittedly, it’s much funnier if you read the lyrics on a website than listen to it in its garbled, fuzzy form, so you can clearly see before your face such lyricism as, “Neglected seed, why?!” or the line “Father, bastard, I’m the Devil’s very own” prefaced with a simple, “Fuck!”, as on the Genius lyrics page.

Grade: S

7. White Knuckles

No, seriously, this cracker be just straight-up yapping thru the verses, & you have to be generous to call the choruses sung, too. & this song’s meaning is the same as half the rest o’ this album: “I’m angry; I want to punch something”. There’s just so many clichés: “sick & tired”, “demons inside command me”, “¿How many people really care?”, & “rescue the world from slavery”… Wait, ¿what? ( “always rappin’ like you ’bout to get the slaves freed” ).

These lines also stood out to me:

i won’t eat another rotten apple
tho i’ve grown to like the taste

If you’ve grown to like the taste, ¿why won’t you eat them? ¿’Cause it’s bad for your health? ¿Why would you add that last line? Nobody needs to hear ’bout your masochism fetish for eating moldy food.

Needless to say, I have stopped caring ’bout how these songs sound anymo’, as they all sound the same & I’m too drunk to pay any attention to any o’ it.

Grade: D

8. Can’t Heal You

O, wow, yet another song ’bout the singer not being able to tolerate another person’s shit. ¿Who are all these assholes you keep running into? You know what they say: if e’eryone’s an asshole, then maybe you’re the asshole. You’re grown-ass men, you should be free to hang out with who you want to hang out with. Just stop hanging around assholes: there, all o’ your problems are solved.

I’m guessing by lines like, “you’re lost inside your pale addictions”, that this is ’bout some junky friend o’ the singer’s, but then near the end you get lines like, “we’re taught to perish but fade away”. ¿Are we taught to do drugs? ¿Who’s teaching us to do drugs? ¿Is this Tom MacDonald & Ben Shapiro rapping — sigh: yes, that really happened — ’bout how gangster rap teaches kids to do drugs? ¿Or is the pale addictions just some vague habits o’ self-destruction? Or maybe I shouldn’t care ’cause it’s a fucking Five Finger Death Punch song ¿WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?

Grade: D

9. Death Before Dishonor

While this song might be 1 o’ the most banal-sounding o’ songs, lyrically it’s a bit mo’ specific ’bout what “haters, […] takers, […] liars, [& …] vultures” Moody’s ranting gainst — tho it’s an odd combination, including the FBI & cops, but also the FCC. I’m not sure what problem he has with these organizations or what it has to do with his preference for “death before dishonor” or his preference for dying o’er having to “live down on my knees”. ’Less this cracker’s cooking up meth or some hard illegal drug or engaging in some domestic terrorism shit, I don’t think the FBI’s interested in him.

But the 3 writers who worked on this poetry saved their finest work for the beginning o’ the 2nd verse:

you imitate the ostracized
put your head beneath the sand

¿D’ya get it? Ostracized, ostrich.

Grade: D

10. Meet the Monster

This song, whose title oozes with cheese, starts with a decent downtuned rhythm, only to explode into this album’s typical wall of o’erproduced noise. The chorus singing sounds particularly warped: ¿a goofy effect or the outcome o’ too much compression? I’m not an audio engineer, so I don’t know.

The lyrics are particularly odd — & by odd, I mean awkward, starting with the eloquent, “it’s not that complicated & you ain’t gotta believe”, & following with lines that don’t e’en feel like they belong together. In fact, “they’ll put me down in a hole before I let you succeed” contradicts “I know you think you’re special, but you ain’t nothin’” 2 lines later: if the person you’re talking to is nothing special, ¿why are you so willing to prevent this person from succeeding? Sounds quite important to you to me.

¿can you read between the lines?
¿or are you stuck in black & white?

¿Why would there be color ’tween 2 black-&-white lines? If the lines are black & white, — if the text is black & the document white — that implies the whole document is black & white, so ’tween them would also be black & white. ’Gain: these lines have nothing to do with each other. I guess I can’t read ’tween the lines, as there must be some hidden line that would connect these 2.

hope I’m on the list of people that you hate

This is just a metaphor that has no connection to reality by itself: nobody creates a list o’ people that they hate but Richard Nixon, & he died several years before this song came out.

it’s time you met the monster that you have helped create

this menacing line is followed by the weakest “bleh” sound, to really rub in how scary it’s s’posed to be.

I’m sick of all of the fiction; we’re gonna settle it

¿Are we? ’Cause I have a subtle hunch that I’m gonna hear ’bout how much you hate this unknown honkey for 3 mo’ songs.

Grade: D

Final Thoughts

Actually, the good news is we don’t have to: those other 3 songs are bonus tracks, including an acoustic version o’ “The Bleeding”, which was definitely warranted from a band like this. Yeah, “Never Enough” was a single that they for some reason didn’t include on the original release o’ this album but did on re-releases as a bonus track & offered for free on their website to those who bought the original version o’ this album s’posedly. It’s all right: it’s much catchier than e’ery song on this list. But the lyrics are ultra vague, e’en by this album’s standards: other than the weird metaphor ’bout people being chalk drawings on the concrete, this song is full o’ “it’s never enough”s, “it’s all fucked”s, & literal, “‘say this’, ‘say that’”s, as if a meta commentary on how bland the lyrics are. If we include that song, it’s the best on this album, but still just a C, & that says something.

Final Grade: D

I’m sorry we went back to back with meh albums. That’s the problem when you try to be mo’ authentic than all the memesters online who just look @ infamously bathic nu-metal bands like Limp Bizkit or “Staind boxer shorts”: turns out most o’ those ol’ 2000s nu-metal & alt-metal bands are mo’ just boring & repetitive than hilariously terrible. This also explains why despite Five Flummoxed Brady Bunches being so widely hated online, they’re not as infamous: they’re not as fun to hate on.

I swear after this we will look @ a much mo’ interesting album — well, to me a’least.

9. SS Tea Cup Story 3: Get in the Tea Cup

The most interesting swimming level in this game, especially with the unique mechanic o’ the eels you have to dodge by quickly swimming in front o’ them & swimming back ’way, & then rushing past them as they pull back. Granted, I’m mixed on the treasure door’s hiding place under the last eel, requiring you to intentionally get grabbed by it down to the small pocket o’ clear water that holds it: on 1 hand, it’s certainly 1 o’ the most memorable treasure door locations; on the other, it’s a bit unfair & counterintuitive to expect the player to intentionally let themself get hit by something the game heavily discourages you from getting hit by, especially when you lose 2 coins whene’er you’re grabbed, e’en by the eel you’re s’posed to be grabbed by.

While not quite unique, the seagull platforms introduced in this level are also a rare mechanic that helps this level stand out, tho they don’t contribute much to this level beyond acting as stepping stones to collecting coins & can be completely ignored for just going from start to level goal.

Continue reading @ Level Rankings.com…

15. Go to the Cellar!! Story 2: Avoid the rocks!

The central mechanic o’ falling rocks o’ randomly varying sizes — small rocks, which can be grabbed & thrown, & large boulders that make Wario flat — is unique & clever. Unfortunately, going to the other extreme o’ this game’s most common problem to the greatest extent in this game, this level relies almost entirely on this gimmick thruout the whole level, with the only exceptions being a room with basic enemies & a basic room where you break blocks as fat Wario.

While I’m thankful that there are only 2 places where you’d want to be flat Wario, both just for coins, that leaves catching small rocks & dodging large boulders, usually just so you can throw the small rocks @ throw blocks in the way o’ coins, to hold up this whole level. A bit o’ variety would’ve gone a long way. They do add minor complications like needing to jump o’er gaps while dodging boulders & specially bats who not only risk grabbing you & making you drop the rock you’re holding, but can also make you drop your rock if you jump into it to try avoid being grabbed.

Continue reading @ Level Rankings.com…

21. One Noisy Morning Story 2: Turn off the giant faucet!

The better “flooded castle” level, replacing the sluggish swimming round bubbles & Drills with mo’ exciting platforming challenges o’er rapids that threaten to push you back whence you came, including 1 place with furniture that keeps spawning from broken-open holes, only to break ’pon hitting the wall @ the end, where you have to time a jump on it so you can be standing on ground to enter the treasure door — since e’eryone knows it’s scientifically impossible to go thru doorways while in the air.

This level’s ending is also similar but better than its sequel, replacing hitting some random block with shutting off the faucet causing this flooding in the 1st place by elbowing its spigot 3 times, with the extra visual touch o’ having the amount o’ water coming out decrease a bit with each hit.

Continue reading @ Level Rankings.com…