Five Iron Frenzy were a Christian ska-punk band formed in 1995, and the main thing that sets them apart from most Christian bands was that they were actually good. These guys ended up influencing many modern Christian bands, including Relient K, who even wrote a song about them.
I love Five Iron Frenzy. They were pretty much the only Christian band I ever liked. Their music was hyper, fun, energetic, catchy, but at the same time, funny and smart. Their style of lyrics were either funny, smart, or religious, but no matter what it was, Reese Roper, their vocalist, managed to pull off songs by just being a silly little guy, singing with a high-dose of sarcasm, or from the heart, almost like he was going to break down any second.
The fact that they're Christian might put people off, but again this is how FIF was unique, basically the whole band had an idea that absolutely no one would be turned to Christ if the band was all "JESUS I LOVE YOU JESUS YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE FOR ME etc etc" so they made only a few explicitly religious songs, and hid religious references in some of their other songs. And some never even touched religion at all! Even if you're Atheist, if you take an effort to look into Reese Roper's lyrics, you'll see he's a smart man. He even states, sarcastically of course, in the opening 'The Old West' which is about some Cowboys trying to convert people to Christ back in the day, and how extreme they took it:
"I think it would be nice, if we could take these injuns and convert them all to Christ; See, they are all disgusting, and bringing me great pain, and if they don't believe me, we'll put a bullet in their brains!"
Now onto the album:
This was FIF's first, and while the sound quality is better than most debut albums by non-major record label artists, you can kind of tell it by the sound. As opposed to later, songs on here are done more in a punk style than ska (that's not to say ska is nowhere to be found), as you can see in their cover of Amy Grant's 'Everywhere I Go' which sounds nothing like the original.
While part of me wants to say it's a great album, it's really not. It does have its gems on there, but some songs, unless you're already a FIF fan and are just checking this out now, are somewhat forgettable.
That's not to say there aren't some bright spots, because there certainly are, like 'The Old West' and 'Where Zero Meets Fifteen', it's just some, while quite well-written lyrically for them, especially since I think Reese Roper must've written some of these songs as a teenager, there are some not bad songs, but not particularly great.
Overall, it's okay if you already like FIF, a bit disappointing if you check this out as your first, I'd imagine.
And to think, they were only a couple of young people (I think a few were even teenagers at the time of recording this), and they didn't know what the future held for them. This was only the beginning of Five Iron Frenzy and their reign over the Christian music community.
6/10
Recommended Track(s): Everywhere I Go
