Hello scrobblers and fellow music lovers! It's me, @saydie, with my debut review in the Scrobble.life community. And for my first review, I'd like to share my thoughts about Falling In Reverse's most recent song, Joseph, which was just released today in collaboration with Corey Taylor of Slipknot and Serj Tankian of System of A Down. And apparently, Jason Richardson, former guitarist of Chesea Grin and All That Remains is also involved in writing the lyrics.
Short introduction to the band, Falling In Reverse is currently one of the most successful metal bands right now, formed by Ronnie Radke, the former frontman of Escape The Fate, who's in a lot of controversy ranging from minor beef with other artists to some legal issues. They are known for blending different music genres, including pop, rap, and opera, to evolve their music.
Moving on, Joseph, just like other FIR songs, is a mixed bag of different genres, with the start of the song beginning with a calm Opera as Ronie was there sitting in a burning plane, then switching to a fast-paced rap song and once again switching to heavy metal with some sick guitar riffs as he goes to fight a group of armed people after he falls to the top of a truck when the plane exploded.
Then the song goes back to opera, with Ronie even doing some falsetto, while his being thrown into a falling truck in a slow-motion scene that reminds me of Flash in Zack Snyder's Justice League, then goes heavy again as we go to Corey Taylor's part, which is the first surprise in this song. It's not the first time that Corey did a collab with FIR. He was also present during Drugs, but he did not have his mask during that time. This time, however, he was in his full Slipknot attire, with his mask, and his hair was in dreadlocks. But what really shocked me was when Corey screamed "you cannot escape your fate", which might be a reference to Ronnie's previous band, but as far as I know, they were already in good terms.
Followed that, we moved to Serj Tankian's part, which is very reminiscent of the old SOD, particularly with their song Chop Suey. That acoustic guitar play, followed by fast, dynamic, and heavily syncopated drums, was an absolute early 2000s SOD throwback. What's amazing is that Serj's voice doesn't seem to change all throughout these years. Really, it just feels really good to hear Serj's voice.
Then, there comes a breakdown for an epic end, with Ronnie being hunted by tons of skeletons, where he makes them float and throws them to the ground to break them, exactly when he did a low growl. Super amazing!
In terms of VFX, I will say that the video production of Joseph was insane, like I legitimately think that the CGI in the music video has better special effects and even fight scenes than some of the big-time Hollywood movies.
When it comes to the lyrics, the song paints a grim picture of a world consumed by conflict, where institutions (military, religious, political) manipulate and exploit people while claiming moral superiority.
Overall, I can say that I really enjoyed the chaotic nature of this, though I could not say that it will be the same for others, specially for those with preconceived opinions about Ronnie. However, I don't think that it is above Popular Monster or even Zombified, but maybe because the song was still very new and has not stewed enough in me, and for that, I will give it a 90/100 score. Before I forget, the title Joseph was based on Ronnie's middle name, and before this, he also released the song Roland, which is based on his first name, so I do not think it's crazy to think that he will also release a song titled Radke based on his last name in the future.
That was it for me. Thank you, and see you at the next post.
Rating: 90/100
Originally posted through scrobble.life/music.
