Source: Album Artwork
Renaissance is the debut album from Grand Rapids, Michigan metalcore/punk/rock outfit Fine Fine Titans and it is truly a curious beast. On the one hand it is has power and diversity but on the other has it got too much going on? It’s one of those records where it is hard to work out if it is annoying you or you are really, really enjoying it. Anyway you look at it though, it is worthy of your time and a good listen to make up your open mind.
‘We Planted A Bleeding Heart’ opens the album strong like Every Time I Die with a female vocal. It has a groove filled riff and the vocals explode but before you know it, we suddenly enter a very melodic territory which harks back to the early noughties style of rock/metal that we were hit with at the death of the Nu Metal craze.
There is no denying that singer Jennifer Bartlett is a very impressive singer with a very powerful range. She has an inviting melodic style and a blood curdling scream which is never finer than at the trail end of ‘I Just Saw A Ghost’ where she out performs the very best efforts of Still Remains man T.J Miller. Maybe the main problem with the vocal is that it sits far too high in the mix, drowning out everything else which is going off which is a pity. If you really listen you can hear some good stuff going on in the background.
‘Mistress’ starts out with a riff and backing that could be almost tech-metal, once again showing the diversity of this band. It’s not the strongest track on here but it shows once again that there are many parts to this band and they are intent on showing as much as they can on here.
‘Carved Out’ stays put in the heavy/melodic area for the most part and it seems to show the band at their strongest, sure it closes with it going heavy and the vocals going more aggressive. It is a theme that leads straight into the brooding ‘A Fire Retraced (Fahrenheit Diaries II)’. It is at this point you may feel the realisation that the band really do the melodic metal very, very well and if they could maybe focus on this more on album number two and ease out the metalcore, this could be a band who actually turn a lot of heads.
‘Guillotine’ closes this nine track debut and it hits you with a real curveball in the fact that it is a spoken word track. Wait, don’t run away just yet. Sure spoken word can be cheesy at times but done right they can be rather hypnotic. Thankfully we are in the latter here. With a guest vocal from James Barbour alongside Bartlett it ends the record nicely and on a very unexpected note.
Like we said earlier there is a lot going on here, not all of it works but enough does to make this a very enjoyable debut. If they can channel that vision on album number two then expect to hear a lot more from Fine Fine Titans.
