I’ll preface this review by saying it’s a demo and not a proper release so some of my misgivings need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Still, send a review in and no matter what I’ll review it on its merits with the same criteria I review everything else. Just because it’s a demo doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to record in a garbage can – no-one’s expecting every band to go and get Mark Trombino to record their new tracks, but you can get cheap-ish equipment or cheap-ish studio access these days so tinny, badly recorded songs are not really an excuse, demo or not. Five Minute Limit‘s three tracker suffers hideously from a terrible sound that ruins the listening experience. It sounds as if they recorded this live, set up some kind of recording equipment a fair distance away and pressed play.
Then there are the songs themselves, a mixture of catchy pop-punk with some of the worst lyrical themes I’ve come across in a while. ‘Cereal Killer’ has a chorus that revolves around the ‘snap, crackle, pop’ refrain from a box of Rice Krispies. Yes, seriously. Incidentally the riff is relatively catchy, but the whole idea for the song just totally stinks. ‘Came Saw Conquered’ sounds like ‘Cheshire Cat’-era Blink 182 with a vocal that seems to have some kind of weird effect on it. Either that or the guy’s balls haven’t dropped yet.
Some bands just aren’t quite ready and I’d say FML fall into that category. There are some reasonable ideas and the guitar riffs are probably the best bit of the band, but I’d say they still have a lot to learn about songwriting and recording before they go too much further.