False Fed – Let Them Eat Fake

Artist: False Fed

Title: Let Them Eat Fake

Release: LP / Digital

Year: 2023

Label: Neurot Recordings

The announcement of the formation of False Fed predictably drew attention. Specifically, the band consists of Discharge frontman Jeff Janiak, Amebix guitarist and co-founder Stig C. Miller, drummer Roy Mayorga (Nausea, Ministry, Soulfly, Stone Sour, etc.) and bassist JP Parsons. Their biographies are, for the most part, indisputable as perceived. So the arrival of their debut, Let Them Eat Fake, is a major event in the wider scene.

From the first listen, it is clear that Stig holds the creative reins when it comes to music. As it turns out, in their debut as a supergroup, False Fed move in a space directly influenced by the atmospheric works of Amebix and present a different perspective of that sound. Specifically, the album is somewhere between the last, controversial wave of crust punk legends’ Sonic Mass and the late, metal-influenced Killing Joke. If you are a provocateur, you can contrast Let Them Eat Fake with the deeds of Tau Cross. Oh Baron, I pity your downfall. Let’s move on.

In short, False Fed flirts with mechanistic post-punk. Mayorga’s drums are recognizable from the first beat and provide the revelatory tempo that guides the compositions. Janiak, who already has Discharge’s 2016 End Of Days to his credit, is also the barometer that will determine the outcome of the performance. When he clears his voice and devotes himself to the vocal interpretation of the atmosphere, as on “Echoes Of Compromise,” the strengths of the effort are easy to highlight.

It is a fact that Let Them Eat Fake is a direct and atmospheric record. Stig’s guitars, with exceptions like the great verse riffs of “The Big Sleep,” rarely come to the fore to drive the experience. On the contrary, they blend into the rhythmic background together with the bass, accumulating tension, darkness, pessimism. The caustic and suffocating nature of the critique that the album deals with lyrically may not seem diverse, but in its simplicity it works perfectly. False Fed manage to make the difficult easy with carefully chosen ingredients. At 31 minutes, their debut sounds like it encapsulates a broader sonic proposition that isn’t as original as it would like to be, especially with acts like Rigorous Institution popping up and stealing the show lately, but with moments like “Dreadful Necessities” it feels so addictive.

Of course, if you are expecting more crust punk situations, you will probably be disappointed. The exception is “Mass Debate”, which sounds like a dramatic and mid-tempo combination of the members’ bands. But from the opening track “Superficial”, which essentially opens up the listening experience without making any special impression, to the ambient closing track “The One Thing We Cannot Avoid”, False Fed sound determined, focused, with the knowledge, but also the thirst that offers experience in an artistic space that advocates questioning.

The post-truth era of grand narratives as a propaganda mechanism of the ruling class collapses in the eyes of four musicians who want to seize the dynamics of the present. Songs like “The Tyrant Dies” will raise pulses and tensions, move the body and charge the mind with rage, but it is False Fed’s consistent choice to drive their compositions into more atmospheric outbursts. The finale leaves something unanswered, something missing. The hunger is not satisfied. Perhaps this discomfort is also the source of the hidden charm of an album that came out of nowhere, destined to disappear into the void after becoming noise and music that speaks to the heart and mind. I hope it lasts.

A Greek version of this review was originally published on Rocking.gr.

Source: diyconspiracy.net