Album Reviews : Feed Her To The Sharks – Fortitude

Metalcore has seemingly been a dying breed of music these past few years. As the oversaturation of deathcore and post-hardcore bands has hit its prime, the progenitor has only really survived through its original creators, such as Trivium, All That Remains, Killswitch Engage, Parkway Drive, among others. Metalcore bands in the current context need more of a unique niche to flourish, like Motionless in White‘s flirtations with industrial metal, or the more progressive trends of Erra. Which brings me to Feed Her to the Shark‘s Fortitude, which would have been a great album…if this was 2005.

Musically, sonically, lyrically, there’s nothing “wrong” with this album. The drumming is precise, guitar leads are melodic and complex enough for the genre, keyboards and synthesizers add to the melodic atmosphere, the song structures are sound, and the vocals are enticing enough to take a peek at the lyrics. But the general sentiment I came away from this album with was an overwhelming sensation that something had been stolen from me.

Listening to an array of metalcore bands since I was a teenager, after a while the constraints of the genre became overbearing, and left me hungry for more. This I satiated with a discovery of bands that evolved, progressed, or experimented in some way, such as August Burns Red, Between the Buried and Me, and even Dead By April. I’m not by any means against metalcore; Bring Me the Horizon‘s Sempiternal was my favourite album of 2013, and remains an album I will staunchly defend until my grave. But all of these artists strived to achieve something sonically different, that set them apart from their peers. Fortitude appears to have a desire to just blend in or emulate theirs.

This album is textbook metalcore, with emphasis on the word “textbook.” It took all of the musical characteristics from metalcore’s Wikipedia section and implemented them with frightening tenacity. There isn’t anything else to this album. This is a description of the genre at its most fundamental core.

This album gives me the impression that there may be several possible mindsets behind Feed Her to the Sharks; either they have been living under a rock technologically for the past ten years and have only come across bands like As I Lay Dying; they are nostalgically or stubbornly trying to bring back the fading genre from obscurity, or; they are pretentious enough to believe that a generic, by the books metalcore album in 2015 is enough to receive critical acclaim and skyrocket them to global success. Whichever one the mindset is, it doesn’t bode well for listeners.

I don’t really have many items of interest to share from “Fortitude,” because I got bored halfway through and the songs all blended together amidst my distractions. I guess “Burn the Traitor” could be classified as a highlight amongst the others, because it sounds a little more genuine than the other songs on “Fortitude,” but that isn’t particularly difficult to achieve.

Overall, if you’re a fan of original metalcore bands, and are desperately trying to keep the glory years relevant, then Fortitude will provide some solace. It may even be worth a casual listen to some people, but for those who have moved with the rest of us musically, you’re going to come away disappointed, so there’s not much of a point.

Band: Feed Her To The Sharks
Album: Fortitude
Year: 2015
Genre: Metalcore
Label: Victory Records

Track list:
1. The World Is Yours
2. Chasing Glory
3. Burn the Traitor
4. Shadow of Myself
5. Terrorist
6. Heart of Stone
7. Walking on Glass
8. Fear of Failure
9. Faithless
10. Badass
11. Let Go

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