Fire From the Gods "American Sun" <REVIEW>

November 2, 2019 Tom McKay

“…this album grabs your attention from track one and it’s hard to look away.”

I’m sorry, but you assume the sun is American? That’s so stupid! It’s clearly Canadian! Fire From The Gods is a band tagged with the second wave of nu-metal. If you recognize the name, you’ve probably heard of them from their song “Excuse Me”, which is their most viewed song on YouTube with 7.9 million views as of the publish of this review. I personally didn’t hear their debut album Narrative until a year later, a bit too late for a full review. After hearing it, I was even further ashamed that I hadn’t heard it sooner! Punishing metalcore riffs, thoughtful lyrics that flow, silky smooth cleans and pummeling growls, there’s a lot to like about their sound. They’re a band who makes their politics known, but even if you don’t agree with their points, I promise you the music spoke for itself. So when I heard they were making a new record, I was ecstatic! I was so excited to hear what they went with next. So does their second album “American Sun” hold up after their massive debut?

One thing that’s perfectly clear about this album from the moment you hit play on the opening track “Truth to the Weak (Not Built to Collapse)” is that they are incorporating more of the rap elements. I’m not completely against this as AJ Channer is no Lizzo or Kanye West; he has actual flow and great lyrical content… he also doesn’t make me cringe when I listen to him. But while AJ has chops of his own, the instrumentation does a great job on songs like “Right Now”, “They Don’t Like It”, and “All My Heroes Are Dead”. The punishing riffs of Drew Walker and Jameson Teat are well complimented by Bonner Baker’s thick bass.

Make no mistake though; AJ is the real star here. While the instrumentation is doing a good job, it’s really AJ’s flow as an MC and his vocal chops as a singer/screamer that steal the show. If you’ve ever listened to any of FFTG’s earlier material, before AJ, this band wouldn’t survive if he didn’t join the band. He brings a talent to the band that can’t be replaced or replicated, and that puts him on top of the rest.

Though this is the part where I have to let you know that when an album sounds too good to be true, it means that there’s something that doesn’t work. It’s a minor nit pick that you might not find a problem, but for me, that main problem is a song called “Survivor’s Prayer Interlude”. Whilst lyrically it’s on par with the rest, it’s literally just an AJ rap song. I do mean rap song to, this is straight JayZ and Dr. Dre. For a rap song it’s pretty good, fairly short, but pretty good. However if I wanted to listen to a rap song, I would’ve spun the last Kendrick Lamar album, not a nu-metal album.

Even with that track being an issue, it’s not enough to break the album for me. It’s not long enough to do so. Overall, this album still holds up to our expectations in more ways than one. While it’s hard to say if this is better than “Narratives”, it’s still a hard hitting album with great songs to rage to. With it’s lyrical themes becoming a staple of this album and with a star vocalist such as AJ, this album grabs your attention from track one and it’s hard to look away. And with RATM coming back in 2020, I can comfortably say that the American Sun will tide you over for the rage.