TNM Review: Escape The Fate - Self-titled suckfest

Late last December, I wrote a review for BMTH's latest album, that was almost as painfully long as the album title itself. I got way too in depth, spent way too much time on it, and ultimately, nobody ended up reading it anyway. So why not make the same mistake twice? Here's my review of Escape The Fate's latest travesty to the music world...

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to align yourself against these so-called "enemies of metal", if you don't even know who they are and you don't know them well. Manowar has been telling the wimps and poseurs to leave the hall for decades now, and we have raised our fists and horns on cue in defiance against these nameless antagonists whomever they may be. In our minds we have fabricated this heavy metal battlefield, with swords held high, where those of us in allegiance with true metal valiantly charge towards our faceless adversaries. Today I would like to put a name and face on the concept of all that is false, untrue, and poseurly. That name and face is Las Vegas buttcore band, Escape the Fate.

ETF is hardly a new face to the suck scene. Their launch to internet kid stardom was set off by winning a local radio contest in 2005 that was judged by the then relevant My Chemical Romance. They then released their first full length album in 2006, and pranced around the mainstream wearing Slayer and Cannibal Corpse t-shirts in an effort to mock and deface our genre as much as possible. Meanwhile, drummer Robert Ortiz spends every waking moment of his life participating in a Slash look-alike contest...

I'd be offended if Slash didn't already suck as it was...

The band would later run into some murder controversy with their singer Ronnie Radke, and he appropriately got the boot. He was replaced with Craig Mabbit, former singer from christcore band Blessthefall.

Getting past their scene queen looks, musically is where ETF truly horrifies. It's like if a screamo band went to a Sum 41 show, then as soon as they got home, tried to do it themselves. That's pretty much it. Or at least that used to be the case with Radke. I start the album, and after the twinkly intro, I get to the track Massacre. This is a Bring Me The Horizon riff. The last thing I want to do is defend one of my least favorite bands, but there's something to be said if you're ripping those guys off.  The main difference here being their clean chorus crooning, which actually sounds more emo than your typical metalcore setup. Didn't know it could be done. Then I get a guitar solo, and I can't really deny the fact that guitarist Bryan Money has got some chops. At first I was a bit more impressed, thinking "pretty good for a girl", because until I found out his name, I legitimately thought Money was a woman. I'm not kidding. He's probably the biggest transvestite in the scene today. If I was drunk in a bar, I would hit on him. Breakdowns and shrieking are a plenty here, along with random remix skipping and chirping. I was worried that this terrible track would set the mood for the rest of the album, and I would be in for a long night. I had no idea the terrifying reality of my situation...

So then we get to the single of the album, Issues. I'm fed another overproduced, quirky, chirpy industrial intro before they start "rocking". This song sounds a lot like something you would hear on the local rock radio station that refuses to keep up with what's current. Maybe it is a song on the radio now? I wouldn't know because I'm actually metal. Dare I say, the singing and guitar is almost Linkin Park-esque, which isn't really all that daring, because it's a perfect comparison. The guitar solo, which I was expecting to be the only saving grace, was actually lazy and incredibly short. The next song Zombie Dance starts out surprisingly promising, as the music crescendos to almost epic metal proportions. Could Escape the Fate really write a song I might actually like? I am immediately slapped back to reality as the song starts to blow worse than anything ever. It sounds like an over-driven No Doubt tune. I know its easy to say because 2011 just started, but this is the worst song I've heard all year. It sounds like a Britney Spears song with electric guitar. I'm going to link it to you, because I want you to be as mad.

The pop princess routine continues musically and lyrically with Gorgeous Nightmare. Money plays another pretty okay solo, but it doesn't do much to help things. With City of Sin, I'm convinced that this isn't a metalcore album anymore, but a pop album. Not even the kind of pop music sung by a man. Escape the Fate's music isn't manly enough to be on the same par as Adam Lambert. Nay, it is the type of music written for young girls like Miley Cyrus and Katie Perry to sing. If Katie Perry's California Girls had a guitar solo at the end of it, it would be an Escape The Fate song. This is truly terrible stuff.

Boys in black makeup... They still make you?

Day of Wreckoning blares through the speakers and I am so joyfully grateful to hear some ol' fashioned cliche metalcore. When I say cliche, boy do I mean it. To best describe the predictability of this track, you are able to put the headphones down, walk away, go microwave a hot pocket, come back with cooked hot pocket, put the headphones back on, and start eating at the exact moment of the breakdown. Then.., keyboards! It's the next song, Lost in Darkness. What a gothfest. Listening to this song, I'm surprised I don't have a razor at the ready. Moving on, if I rolled my eyes any harder at the marching troops sound effect at the beginning of Prepare your Weapon, blood would pour from them. Is there some kind of vault or desert we can bury that overused sound gimmick in please? Anyway, the song is so far the fastest, and comes closer to something metal than anything else on the album thus far. It's still, however, metalcore in its very essence, and Mabbit's voice would have the ability to even gay up a viking battle reenactment if he was given the chance. This is an ETF song, and it still sucks. The mild goodness of the song ends halfway, and it just gets weepy and fairyriffic like everything else I've heard so far.

Then... power ballad! I wish I was 15 again so I could go through a mild enough breakup to truly appreciate The World Around Me. Why would you put a power ballad in an album that desperately needs less gayity? Clearly ETF's goals lie in revitalizing glam rock and everything it represented, to do all the damage it did to the music world once again. The album finally reaches its conclusion with Aftermath. The track starts out pretty metal with some high gain sweeps and taps and such, but the rest of the album has taught me to know better than to hope for something more. You can tell the band really poured their heart and soul into this last track, it truly is the best effort of a worthless album, but like always, that's not saying much. It's just a speedy metalcore song with all that cookie cutter goodness we've discussed so far.

Escape the Fate may have released this self-titled disaster around the end of last year, but lucky enough for them, it was just in the knick of time to be a strong contender in the running for worst album of 2010. Avoid this album like it were Helen Thomas running at you in a teddy with a box of rubbers.