Well, this has been a long time coming, hasn’t it? Falling in Reverse’s last album was way back in 2017, and the band have changed a hell of a lot in the last seven years. That change has been detailed over a handful of singles that, sadly, most of which have made it onto this album. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved all of them, but we’ve heard A LOT of this album over the course of the last few years. Heck, the opening track was released half a decade ago. But, as I said, I love the songs, and I’m curious to hear the ones I haven’t yet, and to see how it all fits together as an album!
Shockingly, the album at least opens on a brand new song with ‘Prequel’. However, having said that, it still feels like an extended intro song, of sorts. It’s four minutes of continuous building through Ronnie’s rapping and the incredible arrangement of instrumentation. It’s epic in every sense of the word, and the instrumentation even offsets the cringe levels of some of the lyrics almost entirely. It’s a really good track to use to kick off the album, setting the tone for the craziness coming after it. It’s damn heavy rap/hip-hop, and is a lot of fun!
The song that got me into the band, ‘Popular Monster’ is up next. Though they seemed like they were everywhere in my teen years, they were never my sort of thing, coming across as cringy. However, while this wasn’t the first song in this sort of vein, it was definitely the biggest, and really set the tone for this album back all those years ago. For anyone who’s somehow not already heard this song who’s reading this, it perfectly blends their radio rock style with hip-hop, being both heavy and hugely catchy. Even having been released half a decade ago now, it was a fitting track to build the whole album around. As much as I’d have preferred more new stuff, it’s nice to have this finally on a full-length release.
Ronnie and Co. venture into country territory with ‘All my Life’. This took me a second to get into, mainly due to Ronnie’s questionable (at best) country voice. However, it is an insanely catchy song that borrows a lot from HARDY’s Mockingbird album in all the best ways. And Jelly Roll, despite being a feature whore at this point, does phenomenally here, and really is the highlight of the track. It’s the most different track on the album, but is a fun listen, packed full of enjoyable riffs and vocal melodies, and even a surprising breakdown. It’s been on our playlist for a few months now!
Things get heavy again right off the bat with ‘Ronald’. This one has done the rounds a lot online, and for good reason, it’s fucking awesome. It’s absolute chaos, with Ronnie growling and screaming throughout, and the instrumentation goes hard. And both the guests on the track, Tech N9ne and Slaughter to Prevail’s Alex Terrible, kill it, too. Tech goes off with his rapping right from the get go, and manages to get some singing in too. Meanwhile, the outro ‘screaming battle’ between Alex and Ronnie is filthy, heavy metal excellence. I love that the band experiment with structures, this not being the only song on the album not not really have a chorus, just a bunch of different parts. But it works perfectly here. It’s another track that’s on our playlist somewhere!
‘Voices in my Head’ was the single from the album that I wasn’t entirely sold on, and that feeling still remains today. It’s not a bad song per se, but definitely the worst of the heavily modern-rap-inspired ones. The rapping is impressive, and it’s a catchy track (especially the chorus). I just think there are other songs that do this style better from the band. Then again, I know plenty of people love it!
Songs like ‘Bad Guy’ and ‘Trigger Warning’ feel the closest to the bands old sound on the album. Both are again pretty cringy lyrically, but are so catchy it’s hard not to love them. I love that Ronnie spends nearly 40-minutes telling the listener he knows people hate him and how much he doesn’t care about it. The irony is delicious. The latter is better than the former in almost every way, not having a mgk-esque vocal delivery and melody, instead feeling more Shinedown/Otherwise style. It also has an amazing chorus and even an amazing piano solo which was unexpected but fit surprisingly well. Both songs are good, but damn, ‘Trigger Warning’ is a big highlight!
‘Watch the World Burn’ is an absolute masterpiece. There is a reason it exploded on social media upon its release and has massive streaming numbers. From the modern hip-hop first half, packed with awesome lyrics and some truly amazing flow, building and building into a HUGE, rock/metal second half, it’s something everyone should listen to at least once. It has a bit of literally everything the band are good at, and pulls off every style to perfection. If you are going to check out any track off this album, let it be this one. Especially with the incredible video they did for it!
‘Zombified’ is your typical radio dad-metal song, but done to perfection. It’s another one that was everywhere so I’d be very surprised if any readers hadn’t already heard them. The basic, heavy riffs lend themselves perfectly to the hugely catchy vocals throughout. And damn, the harmonies in this are incredible. It feels like it has very quickly become a bit of an anthem over the last year or two it’s been out, and it’s so good it has every right to be. This album is really solid, it’s just a shame so much of it has been out so long.
The kinda closing track, ‘No Fear’ is a really interesting one. Ronnie goes full Eminem with it, and I honestly love it. It feels like where Em should have gone after The Eminem Show, instead of the meh that was Encore. And, when it is presented like this, Ronnie’s cockiness and lyric writing fit and make much better sense. The chorus is catchy enough, but the real meat of the track is the rapped verses, and they’re all great. The breakdown partway through the third verse is also hilarious, getting a genuine chuckle out of me as it came out of nowhere, though fit perfectly after the word ‘drop’. And we even get a reappearance of the deaf voice for the ending, something that I’m sure was intentional on Ronnie’s part. If you’re into some epic, Em/Tech hip-hop, I’d highly recommend this song! Then their piano cover of ‘Last Resort’ comes in to kinda ruin the vibes. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastic, beautiful cover, but doesn’t fit in at all with the rest of the album, and feels very much like an odd-track-out. Still, it doesn’t tarnish the album much, but I don’t think I’ll listen to it much on full-album listens.
Overall: This is of course amazing. We all knew it would be, due to sadly the sheer amount of the album we’d already heard. However, I do think this does a better job than Electric Callboy did with the same problem a couple of years back. The album flows well together, and is chocked full of amazing songs. It’s by far the best full-length the band have ever put out, and a true demonstration of the talent and songwriting ability of Ronnie Radke. It certainly won’t be for everyone, but I loved it and I know a lot of others will too!
The Score: 9/10 (would have been higher with more new songs!)