Future Leaders Of The World
Reveal
Pavement Music
2015
Future Leaders Of The World (or F.L.O.W.) are a post-grunge/alternative/hard rock band which started back in 2002. “Reveal” is their 2nd full length album. What’s it like you ask? It’s neither bad, nor great. I know I start a lot of my reviews this way… but there’s really no better way to put it.
The record starts off with “Live Again”, “Intoxicate” and “Sink or Swim”, three pretty decent songs with a nice energy to them, which kinda sound like something Linkin Park would include in one of their latest releases. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Chester Bennington of Linkin Park has expressed a liking for Future Leaders Of The World.
At this point, I was convinced that Future Leaders Of The World were a slightly more clean-cut hard rock version of Linkin Park. However moving on, the album slowly takes a more post-grunge/alternative turn and starts resembling the sound of bands like Alter Bridge. “All In Your Eyes” (track #4) is a tight song which wanders to a more hard rock path, and it serves perfectly as a transition for “Can’t Let Go”, a bittersweet and at times aggressive song which in my opinion is one of the record’s highlights. The hard rock mood continues with “The Killing Blow”; melodic, emotional and yet packing a punch, this track will give you the vague impression that you’ve heard it somewhere before from a band like Puddle Of Mud or Seether, but nevertheless it’s a quite enjoyable track.
At this point “Reveal” takes a turn for the worse. “Our Secret”, “Mirror”, “Wherever the Wind Blows”, “Best Child” and “Rain” are all pretty decent and earnest attempts, but they all seem to fall flat. The guitar work is fine (some of the solos are actually pretty tight), the groove is there if you wanna see it, the vocals are by all means perfectly OK, but there’s something missing. Maybe it’s just me, but every time I listened to all those songs my attention would shift to something else, and especially during “Rain” I plainly got bored.
Finally, there’s “Not Forsaken” the last track in “Reveal” which kinda rewards you for getting this far, but in no way redeems the second half of the record. In other words, 7 out of 12 songs are not bad, but, let’s face it, they’re not great either.
The record starts off with “Live Again”, “Intoxicate” and “Sink or Swim”, three pretty decent songs with a nice energy to them, which kinda sound like something Linkin Park would include in one of their latest releases. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Chester Bennington of Linkin Park has expressed a liking for Future Leaders Of The World.
At this point, I was convinced that Future Leaders Of The World were a slightly more clean-cut hard rock version of Linkin Park. However moving on, the album slowly takes a more post-grunge/alternative turn and starts resembling the sound of bands like Alter Bridge. “All In Your Eyes” (track #4) is a tight song which wanders to a more hard rock path, and it serves perfectly as a transition for “Can’t Let Go”, a bittersweet and at times aggressive song which in my opinion is one of the record’s highlights. The hard rock mood continues with “The Killing Blow”; melodic, emotional and yet packing a punch, this track will give you the vague impression that you’ve heard it somewhere before from a band like Puddle Of Mud or Seether, but nevertheless it’s a quite enjoyable track.
At this point “Reveal” takes a turn for the worse. “Our Secret”, “Mirror”, “Wherever the Wind Blows”, “Best Child” and “Rain” are all pretty decent and earnest attempts, but they all seem to fall flat. The guitar work is fine (some of the solos are actually pretty tight), the groove is there if you wanna see it, the vocals are by all means perfectly OK, but there’s something missing. Maybe it’s just me, but every time I listened to all those songs my attention would shift to something else, and especially during “Rain” I plainly got bored.
Finally, there’s “Not Forsaken” the last track in “Reveal” which kinda rewards you for getting this far, but in no way redeems the second half of the record. In other words, 7 out of 12 songs are not bad, but, let’s face it, they’re not great either.