Tin Foil Phoenix - Living In The Shadow Of The Bat
On the eve of releasing their debut across North America, a terrible thing happened. The band that was known as Sonic Bloom became a band in limbo, album in hand but without a name. As improbable as it may sound, 'Living In The Shadow Of The Bat' was already being printed and pressed for release when it was discovered that other enterprises held rights to their chosen name in some territories; and that’s when everything came to a grinding halt. Behind the scenes, the wheels resumed turning and the plans for release were shifted to the future. Some months and a name change later, Tin Foil Phoenix emerges from the tumult to resume the story they had begun so well.
Tin Foil Phoenix is one of a kind, that’s for sure. Not only the intro to this review confirms that, but the rest of the official biography does that as well. Influences are coming from genres like gangsta rap, progressive rock and Top 40 stuff. Not an amazing thing when I tell you this CD bounces from one style to another like a pinball. Though, this music isn’t bad, actually it’s not bad at all… oh what the heck, it’s just good!
‘Neopolitan’, the first song on this album, starts with hip-hop, and that actually scared the hell out of me when I listened to it the first time. Being a metalfan and reviewer of metal CDs and listening to hip-hop, that’s not really a daily combination, is it? Well, after listening to this album many, many times (I just didn’t get the inspiration to review this album, because of the tons of variation on it) it became better and better.
Fortunately there’s not only hip-hop on the album, because the second song already shows the rock qualities Tin Foil Phoenix has got. Clean vocals and sometimes a raw scream are thrown onto me. But the thing that mainly attracted me, besides the variation, are the catchy melodies. Almost every song has haunted my mind for about 10 days long. Just when ‘Neopolitan’ got out of my head, the genius song ‘Ms. Genova’ popped in.
I think this band is really refreshing, where some bands are staying between certain boundaries; Tin Foil Phoenix explores the area outside those boundaries, certainly a pleasure for the human ear. And I don’t really understand myself for saying this, but something in my head tells me that this music might be a bit too pop-orientated for most of the metalheads in this world. I think that fans of E. Town Concrete and Nickelback / Theory Of A Deadman alike bands are definitely gonna like this album.
Release date: 28th February 2005
Michael Allen Zirk – Vocals
Steven Kray – Percussion
Fish – Guitar
Phil Cholosky – Guitar
Paul Robinson - Bass
1. Neopolitan
2. Bum Rush The Motorcade
3. We’ll Get To Venus
4. Ms. Genova
5. The Outside
6. The Mothership
7. James Spader
8. Jesus Isn’t Listening
9. Bottom Of The Bay
10. The Tuesday Effect
75/1001Details Roadrunner Records
Released on Tuesday Nov 30th, -0001
hip-hop / aggressive rock
Writer @Boek on Wednesday Feb 23rd, 2005
Tags: #Tin Foil Phoenix
Tracklisting
Line up