From Autumn To Ashes - 'The Fiction We Live' (Vagrant)
2/5
By: Matt Tomiak
They have a singing drummer amongst their number but this is certainly not a Phil Collins-style easy listen. The promo photos may show five, pouting, black-clad young men (some with thick-rimmed spectacles), but 'The fiction We Live' is certainly not frail emo.
No, Long Island quintet From Autumn To Ashes deal in nihilistic, ominous, blustering hardcore; mostly jagged riffs and indecipherable lyrics, with the occasional burst of melodicism. 'The Fiction We Live' is FATA's sophomore effort and their first for the Vagrant label, and they have, at least to some extent, grown up. Their earlier work was bestowed with titles so sappy that even Dashboard Confessional fans would have balked at; 2000's 'Sin, Sorrow And Sadness' EP containing such agonising sixth-form ruminations as 'A Reflection Of Anguish On A Face So Innocent' and 'Trapped Inside The Cage Of My Soul'. Ouch.
The band's new songs may be named in less gauche a manner, but the lyrics are still as wearingly distressed - if, indeed, you can make any of them out. The chest-beating chorus of 'No Trivia' makes amends for its Linkin Park-lite verses and the brutally direct 'Every Reason To' is decent enough, but the prospect of a non-stop start-to-finish listen of 'The Fiction To Live' is not a particularly attractive one. The title-track articulates it clearly enough: 'The thing is I'm not worth the sorrow' - yup, the gruelling 'The Fiction We Live' just doesn't seem deserving of the effort.
Artists in this article: From Autumn To Ashes
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