- advertisement -

FEED MY DAEMONS
Feed My Daemons
Independent Release

It saddens me to have to write this, but this review was one of the more difficult to pen than any other. I have immersed myself in the debut long play from Greece's self proclaimed "progressive rock" 5 piece going by the name FEED MY DAEMONS, or F.M.D. The band consists of Stavros Savvidis - Vocals, Paris Krallis - Bass, Apostolos Georgiadis - Guitar, Dimitris Kountouras - Guitar and Constantinos Moutafis - Drums, who for the most part are efficient and skilled enough players who in 2023 crafted their debut self-titled long play.

From the band's press release it is stated that "their musical searches draw inspiration from the entire spectrum of rock, heavy metal, melodic 80s and the hard revolutionary sound of the modern era we live in, forming an explosive mixture with a classical, sometimes subversive approach to rhythms and harmonies. Passion, rage, imagination, freedom of opinion, and awakening are some of the themes they address in their lyrics. Manipulation, globalization, hatred, tyranny, and decadence are just some of the demons we are constantly plagued by in the social system we live in, so it can continue to operate recklessly at our expense. Hence the name of the band."

Yep. Just reading these statements brought dread and are the catalyst to the bitter pill I have been forcing down my gullet processing these 8 songs. But here we go. Buckle in, this will be a bumpy ride.

Feed My Daemons begins with the apt titled "Feed My Demons" and the best descriptor to what this one presents is imagine War-era U2 if they played DiAnno-era IRON MAIDEN covers. Not quite nails on a chalkboard, but nothing noteworthy, just a bleak, plodding, non-memorable "song". "Black Is White" follows, and it is a thousand times the title track's superior. Yea it still has an off putting Edge-inspired trilling guitar riff at times, but if you tune that bit out the chugging main riff, uptempo drumming can get your head bobbing. The transition from verse to chorus is nice with its fret walk, simple but effective solo and Stavros' vocals make a listenable hard rock song. "No Excuses" begins with a time and half drum beat and solid bass riff for a couple measures before the rest of the band chimes in in what sounds kind of like a bar band METALLICA for a minute or 2 if played by the same mish mash of MAIDEN and U2 cover band players. "No Excuses" is an OK droning hard rock song, replete with a mid song breakdown that falls flat.

"Infinity" is just infinitely bland, boring, not bad, but not memorable either. "Infinity" would be considered an arena rock/hard rock anthem, with a borderline metal breakdown, that segues into a spoken word bit that has Stavros singing from inside a cardboard box potentially? Then the solo comes in, not bad, but the backing music has these off-key transitions and the whole bit sounds like it was edited in from another song. It doesn't fit. A weird jumble, I guess this is where the "progressive rock" element comes in? Fortunately "Infinity" is only 4 and half minutes in length, even though it has at least 4 different songs in its runtime. "Instant Dreams" starts better than any other song, sure it mimics the bass and drumming only from "No Excuses", but it is better (?). The band comes in and the song goes all droney again, but Stavros' vocals are very nice and the pre-chorus is a well crafted metal bit that falls into a fair chorus, not anything resembling memorable or catchy, but listenable. The solo is nice and fits the song as the band keeps the tempo up, akin to the chorus. All in all "Instant Dreams" is the better of the songs on the album and the ending is swelling and borderline epic.

"Confirm Control" is a muddling mid level bar band hard rocker with those dastardly Edge single note trilling guitars in the verse, that throws the song out the window but then F.M.D. tries to reel it back in with the chorus, which is meh, but at least they try. Just a bad song, but more specifically, a song that actually is hampered by the ill-placed guitar noodling. Well and the bottom of the bog production, but more on that later, maybe. "As I Fall" is another try hard proggie song with more trilling guitars, but at least there is the off tempo drumming that tries to move the song along, maybe trying to tell the guitar player to hit that distortion pedal and dial back on the 1 note guitar play and try a power chord or 10. "As I Fall" would be considered a "ballad", but it does not have any of the oomph that many have done before and after, with more success and certainly more coherence. I could see "As I Fall" being salvaged with better production, and a rewrite of the rhythm guitar part, but?

"Unfolded Mind" closes the long play out with a pretty blatant rip of "This Love", a far superior song by an infinitely superior band, PANTERA, that drops that one listenable moment to go into another try at an arena rock ballad, but at least "Unfolded Mind" lands, kind of. Sure, we lost a wing and the landing gear, but hey we walked away. The chorus is nice enough and the lead in has some good rim work by drummer Constantinos Moutafis. The solo break again is from another song, doesn't fit in the slightest, but is not bad. Seriously, "Unfolded Mind" is literally 5 different songs cut together, each being fair to midland, but together makes a song that is dangerously close to unlistenable. I guess I do not "get" progressive rock. At 4 and half minutes "Unfolded Mind" felt like 20 minutes.

In listening to FEED MY DAEMONS' self-titled long play I ponder the band dynamics. Who drives these haphazard song "writing" tangents? Does F.M.D. suffer from a megalomaniac that drives these self-deprecating song crafting tangents? Or is the band a hive mind that takes joy in crafting marginally unlistenable music? One may never know and I am very afraid to pose the question or spin this anymore than I already had to, but hey, give it a listen and you be the judge as FEED MY DAEMONS "progressive" approach to music just might tickle someone. As the saying goes, like diarrhea, everyone has had it and an opinion.

1.0 Out Of 5.0