It's odd that the second album from this Derby, UK-based trio sounds more like
a debut than their first album did. Where last year's The Gracious Art of
Breaking Limbs launched itself as a tight ball of energy, blazing its own
path, here the band seems to be showing its influences more overtly, with a consequent
blurring of focus away from the fierce, molten center so vividly on display last
time.
The new album's sleeve is dressed up like some junior grade Queens of the Stone Age offshoot, and, unfortunately, in places it seems Fixit Kid's remit is now to emulate Josh Homme's eclectic take on all things Metal, which only serves to highlight the gap between the band's ambitions and its ability to realize them. The weediness of the production doesn't help either, with the drums in particular sounding hollow and insubstantial where they should be providing a positively seismic accompaniment.
On the plus side (and there are a fair number of positives to be extracted from
this flawed collection), however wayward the band's direction gets, an ability
to simply deliver the goods with maximum impact remains at the heart of things,
through music that's made to be played very loud. The difference is in emphasis:
Fixit Kid's debut was a fast and furious, raw, hardcore-derived blast; The
Easy Way Out is still raw, but it's more obviously aligned to specific genres
and sounds, from the Metal ennui and late-period Nirvanaisms of "Taking Liberties" and "Open
Wide" to the staccato riffs on "Meat" and "Suit," which sound like they've been
stolen from Iron Maiden, then remade as grotesque, lethal parodies. Actually,
it's not been a big distance for this band to travel, from pummeling hardcore
to Bizarro-Metal, but where they genuinely sound out on their own — on the
brooding, brass-flavored mutant funk of "Baracus" and the lurching, menacing
unpredictability of "Exrobot" — it
sounds like their journey is far from over. |
