Devon trio pack emotional depth and a stadium punch into their new album
Firekind have spent a lot of time in the French Alps and strangely the landscape has rubbed off on their music. It's rugged, yet refined, barren, but brimming with life, imposing, yet delicately intimate. It's the kind of album that could make you become stir crazy or an eternal optimist depending on where you find yourself in its topography.
'Adrenalin' jumpstarts the album with an unexpected monster riff which is accompanied with equally dark lyrical elements. It may be the first of many glacial tracks, but there's a warmth from the melody line - in the first of many thematic contradictions along the way. 'Rise Again' follows a similar pattern, with Jas Morris' booming vocals and guitar work likely to cause an avalanche. It's pretty evident within a few tracks why he was voted Guitarist Magazine's Guitarist of the Year.
'Coming Out Alive' and 'Cry For Help' are powerful and personal but granted epic rock choruses that prevent them from being maudlin. If I had to make comparisons, their sound would fall somewhere between U2, Muse and Soundgarden - but Firekind's vibe is very much their own. Despite the introspective and often melancholic tone, this isn't shoegazing, or emo; these are full-bloodied rock songs which are designed to be a live shared experience.
Although the album has been around for some time, it feels as if it's ripe for returning Firekind's music to the consciousness of the masses. The Deluxe edition boasts acoustic tracks which strip things back from the bold production of Alain Johannes, to create a more vulnerable, but equally climatic sound. New song 'Have I Been Living' inspired by the Coronavirus lockdown, reminds us of time when the world stood still. It's loaded with both bittersweet and sanguine lyrics (another contradiction) that define the album.
While 'What I Have Is Already Lost' has tinges of regret and isolation as it attempts to reach its emotional summit, it also reminds us to be grateful and offers hope in its darkest moments.
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