Not so long ago, in the mid 90s “grunge” became a dirty word. As a reaction to its unexpected but meteoric fall from grace, most of what remained of this genre quickly morphed into the horrific and largely regrettable nu-metal scene. Cross-genre bands such as Puddle of Mud and Stained bridged the gap and everyone subtly moved on.
Flash forward fifteen odd years and here we have Day of Fire still proudly flying the flag of grunge, a band that’s built from the ashes of the condemned genre. Their new single ‘Lately’ is a riff heavy, minor key stomp that sounds for the most part like Soundgarden merged with Layne Staley’s Alice in Chains with admittedly a little less bite. Yet by erring on the side of rock and roll rather than preposterous inner angst, this single manages to mostly avoid cheese whilst still being an unashamedly guitar led head-banger. Everything’s up to 11 here, propulsive drumming, rumbling bass and moaning vocals but it’s the phat guitar riffs that magically glue the tune together. Add in some nice reverse guitar trickery and sickly sweet levels of over production and we have a surprising winner.
Ok, it’s not exactly fashionable by any means. There are also alarmingly little signs of cynicism, post-modern self awareness or trendy ironic gestures (haven’t they read the rule book?) and it’s hardly cutting edge. Worst of all, it’s bloody Christian rock. Ah. But who cares? Can’t we all just rock out and enjoy the music? Sure, it’d be foolish to think that Day of Fire can ever win over great chunks of the music buying youth, especially when bands like ‘…Trail of Dead’ highlight how dated this Nashville band sound, but that’s not the point. The point is it’s a pounding monster that can hold it’s own without the trend, and look at it this way, it won’t age like Bloc Party already have.
"Lately" is the first single to be taken from Day Of Fire's recently released third full length album "Losing All".
*MP3 removed by request*
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