Album Review

I simply didn‘t know they had it in ‘em. TFK have been around for five or six years, releasing a ‘98 debut called That‘s What People Do (coproduced by the now-defunct One Hundred Days guys), touring their butts off and then putting out their breakthrough album Set It Off in 2000. Ever since, they‘ve played all the Christian tours and festivals, winning more and more fans each time through town, and now this. Phenomenon is an Aaron Sprinkle production, and the man absolutely aced it; the guitars are full and amped, bass and drums are dialed in to perfection, and frontman Trevor McNevan‘s voice is markedly different from the band‘s previous work. Gone are the rap influences and somewhat stereotypical rap-rock crunch songs like ‘Puppet‘ and ‘Supafly‘, and in are out-and-out rockers like ‘Step To Me‘ and ‘Faith, Love and Happiness‘, which contains the best riff on the entire disc. ‘Ordinary‘ has a Chevelle-like, detuned vibe that could‘ve been a Helmet outtake, ‘Quicken‘ is the heaviest song the band has ever done, with a massively overdistorted chorus, and current single ‘Rawkfist‘ has a to-die-for pop chorus, layered and shambling. A downer is ‘This Is A Call‘, a pretty bland acoustic ditty, but this is easily forgiven.

Still most compelling to the teenagers out there, TFK have learned to craft supremely catchy rock songs, and with their label pushing publicity hard, 2004 should be their year.

- Mike Postma