Fireapple Red - Despite It All
For however re-assuring it is when an underground UK based band issues a single that kicks all their over-hyped over-blown major label counterparts squarely into touch, what is equally thoroughly depressing is when such a band delivers a single, as Fireapple Red do on 'Despite It All,' which only serves to act as a reminder as to how stale some strands of metal have become.
This is pop music cynically designed for the mainstream whose diluted old-school riffage filtered through the Funeral For a Friend branded 'hit' machine underlines that there is nothing remotely original, exciting or refreshing here. Instead, just a sound that pours scorn on a band whose influences should ensure they know better.
Perhaps there is a space for FAR in the mainstream, who knows, but if integrity means anything to these boys they would take the blueprint they quite clearly work from and rescue it from the clutches of musical mediocrity before it swallows what individuality they have left whole.