Five Finger Death Punch – Legacy
Five Finger Death Punch – Legacy
Better Noise Music
Release date: 31/07/26
Review by: Jon Deaux
4/10
Eventually, everybody starts thinking about the rest. Everybody ends up having a headstone, a house nobody cares about anymore, and a Facebook account somebody wishes a happy birthday on six years after death. Five Finger Death Punch end up having a discography.
Ten albums. Twenty years. More than enough merchandise to upholster a small nation. But somehow, they managed to make a career so relentlessly mediocre that loving and disliking this band requires one and the same set of criteria. Out there, somewhere, there is a band that has tried equally hard to divide the public, and has failed in doing it even better. They have performed at festivals. Have sold records. They’ve done all the things they could do but headline that festival that keeps inviting them.
Like an uncle that is invited to Thanksgiving but doesn’t ever get to the carving – they show up. They fulfill their duty. Nobody trusts them around the turkey. It’s because it suits a band that is known by its skulls and its personalities – we were told no, and we’re still slightly angry about it.
Twenty years into their career, they released an album with the title Legacy. Which is either the most self-aware album name ever or the most ironic one. Legacies are never self-given – everybody else gives it to you, usually immediately after your death, while enjoying the food at your funeral. Five Finger Death Punch decided to skip all of those steps and give themselves a premature eulogy in order to enjoy it themselves while they still disagree with it. Here’s what the eulogy says: generic. Not bad – bad implies effort into failing. Generic, like the paint called “Off-White” – existing only in order to give you no chance to make a choice.
Feed an artificial intelligence with all of their music, and here’s what it will produce as the tenth album for them. Somewhere out there, there is a language model, looking at the track list and recognizing itself for the first time. A hostage sympathizing with its captors – because at least the captors are consistent. Every song does exactly what every Five Finger Death Punch song did before. The riffs are chugging precisely as much as it needs, and no more than that, like a fitness trainer that gave up on you but still has to earn his money. The choruses are big, because big is what the fans paid for, and this band never refuses a paying customer. Metal at its most swollen and bloated, metal at its most “we found the formula in 2013, and we won’t stop until we try our hand at stand-up comedy.”
Netflix does the same with its reality television – at least Netflix doesn’t pretend that it’s art.
This is what should scare you, if you still are capable of fear after the last decade: it will work. Fans will call it a return to form, although the band never really left – how do you go back to a couch you never got out of? The critics will call it yet another example of the band that peaked in the times of the second Bush administration and forgot that the party is over. Both sides will be right. Both sides will be satisfied.
Nobody’s mind will change because nobody’s mind was ever meant to. This is not music. It’s confirmation bias with a rhythm section.
Here’s the legacy. Not great music – predictability so perfect that you could play this album at the funeral and nobody would guess whether it was a eulogy or entertainment. Taking into account the number of times they’ve toyed with themes of mortality in their careers – it sounds more like an ominous prediction than an insult.
They know exactly what they are doing. Twenty years of music, ten albums, a name like Legacy – this is not an accident. This is a band standing at the threshold of relevancy, looking down from it, and instead of going back, they decide to commemorate it. Like serial killers that begin to sign their crimes. At some point, you stop hiding who you are and brand yourself.
In short: like them, you’ll love this album because it asks nothing of you except loyalty – a cult that has stopped recruiting members.
Hate them? Congratulations – now you have twelve more reasons to dislike this band, neatly placed into an album.
The rest of us – the majority of humanity, living in the place between liking and disliking them – will listen to it once, forget each and every song within the first ride in a car, and move on the way we always move on from almost everything. Almost everything is forgettable. Most legacies are too. This one, at least, had the decency to admit it in the name.
Track List
01. Legacy
02. De Oppresso Liber
03. Eye Of The Storm
04. Nails In The Coffin
05. In Time
06.Unscathed
07. Joke’s On Me
08. Everybody Lies
09. Shelter
10. Scapegoat
FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH ONLINE:
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Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Jon Deaux and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
