“Chaaarge!” growls prowling timebomb Ivan Moody to open up the newest Five Finger Death Punch album, Got Your Six (Prospect Park), as a massive, neck-loosening snap of a metal groove launches the title-track of their sixth opus. It’s a start that sets the tone as Nevada’s biggest metal act go on to flex their muscles once again all through, delivering to your ears another batch of arena-filling monsters.
Six albums in and you know by now exactly what you’re getting with 5FDP, and the latest installment lives up to expectations with eleven tracks of chugging, conviction, cussing, posturing, ball-breaking and a slew of grooving mainstream metal anthems. All the above are present and correct, Sir!
The majority of 5FDP’s output sits comfortably in the mid-tempo crunch n’ grind, and it’s in that comfort zone that Got Your Six exists, as ‘Jeckyll and Hyde’ lurches its steam-roller intent. Yet, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Moody has the perfect big metal voice, spitting and gruff with conviction then switching to strong, powerful melodies when the song needs them, while Jason Hook provides the type of melodic, memorable solos that are oft overlooked at regular intervals, adding colour with a classical guitar interlude to ‘Question Everything’, another track that slaps your chops and leaves them sporting a shit-eating grin. Likewise there will be no complaints when the heads are snapping to the thrashing, lively ‘No Sudden Movement’ or arms are in the air while singing out to ‘My Nemesis’.
While this time around the bands emphasis is slightly on the more fist-pump, growl-along side of their arsenal, there are some great choruses, not least ‘Ain’t My Last Dance’, that switches from juddering metal riffery to a trademark 5FDP descant with a refrain created for thousands to find themselves waking with an earworm, and in ‘Wash It All Away’ they have an absolutely colossal tune.
Got Your Six is side-to-side, front-to-back representin’ the good ship Death Punch in style with nary a whiff of filler. There may be no surprises, but there are no disappointments either from a band who knows exactly what they’re good at and how to deliver it in spades.
7.5/10
STEVE TOVEY
