If you look through my CD collection (yes, the things that come in the plastic cases and yes, I still have some) you will find a couple of albums by Atreyu. The band for me had an aggressive feel that was still mainstream enough that I could play it at a party and my friends wouldn’t run out of the room claiming I was sacrificing goats. Over the years I fell out of sorts with the band and was quite surprised when the band Fake Figures dropped their EP Hail The Sycophants on the virtual doorstep of We Love Metal. Fake Figures features Travis Miguel of Atreyu. My first thought was, cool because I used to really dig these guys, but my second thought was: what Atreyu was doing in the 90s is not going to work in this decade.
Needless to say when I started the first of the seven tracks on Hail The Sycophants I had my eyes closed and hands crossed. I wanted this to be modern and aggressive. Fortunately Fake Figures gave me both and more. The band claims themselves as experimental rock, but in all honesty the album is just good guitar driven metal that will appeal to a vast amount of modern fans.
Songs like “Let Them Bleed” and “Caustic” showed Fake Figures doing what they do best. Finding an appealing riff that sticks with you and adding a sing along quality that makes the tracks a lot of fun. Imagine… a metal record that is fun to listen to. Although the tracks feature that interactive quality that is missing in a lot of modern music, it’s not done in a way that dumbs down the songs – ala Nickelback. Fake Figures write very strong tight songs that just happen to have anthem qualities to them.
Left me wanting so much more!
Metal on,
Martell
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