I seriously have to stop listening to what people tell me. Really. Because half of the metal recommendations I get suck. Immensely. Take Five Finger Death Punch, for example. I was discussing the upcoming Exodus album with an individual I was not too acquainted with and he brought up that he was listening to Five Finger Death Punch to hold him over until Exodus‘ The Atrocity Exhibition: Exhibit A hit stores. Having a soft spot for older thrash, I was intrigued and went looking for Five Finger Death Punch’s debut album The Way of the Fist. After listening to this whole album, one striking question arises: what in the name of Jesus Child Molesting Titty Fucking Christ on a pogo stick does this have to do with Exodus or any thrash, much less metal in general? Five Finger Death Punch is the worst excuse for a metal act I’ve heard in awhile.

Now, as you astute martial arts fans must have noticed by now, the name is a reference to Dim Mak. Of course there is already a metal band called Dim Mak, and it is made of Ripping Corpse members. But unfortunately Five Finger Death Punch is no Dim Mak. In fact, the pedigree of Five Finger Death Punch should have thrown up red flags immediately. Five Finger Death Punch is comprised of members of Motorgrater, W.A.S.P., and- get ready to start screeching with laughter- Tuff.

That’s right. Tuff. MOTHERFUCKING TUFF. A hair metal act so gay it makes the rest of hair metal look like Sarcofago. Yeah, if that isn’t an ominous omen of the crap to fill this record, I don’t know what is.

So what kind of "metal" does Five Finger Death Punch throw at us with a limp wrist on The Way of the Fist? They combine the watered down riffs and clean vocal choruses of clichéd Roadrunner-prevalent metalcore, the groove-isms and lead vocal styling of The Blackening-era Machine Head, the tired agro-element of your average Pantera clone, and the rhythm, complexity (or lack thereof), and lyrical themes/techniques of nu metal. Five Finger Death Punch managed to create a freak hybrid of groove metal, metalcore, and nu metal that is… completely familiar! It’s just a combination of the third-to-last Machine Head album with the current Machine Head album. Only difference being that Five Finger Death Punch is worse. Much worse.

Five Finger Death Punch is that pathetic kid who could never learn how to overcome his social ineptitude and develop his own character. So whereas other nerds would make friends and eventually find a useful place in society with normal relations to other people, this kid would stay at home, drawing anthropomorphic erotica of day time television stars. If anyone talked to him by any manner other than an IM in an online MMO game, he would shit his pants and then hoard it in a jar under his mother’s bureau, the one she kept his placenta in to eat years later. Eventually he would discover live action role playing and- having gathered a trusty set of Depends- travel forth to the park to play the Grand Wizard (yes, THAT kind; he’s an idiot) in an awesome elven quest by the swing set with his 13 year-old internet girlfriend. Five Finger Death Punch is pretending that they’re an amazing metal band of sheer machismo, style, and balls but in reality they are just delusional fucks with an increasingly fetid odor collectively arising from their soiled Depends diapers. Incontinence is a bitch.

Needless to say, Five Finger Death Punch has absolutely nothing admirable in its music. It is trite, idiotic, misguided, and appealing only to the most simple of music fans. This is the album for people that swear by ANY era of Machine Head and Roadrunner nu metal; in other words, all copies of The Way of the Fist should be confiscated, burned, and then buried in the desert pit with those lost copies of the Atari E.T. game. Five Finger Death Punch will only benefit society and metal if they disband and get real jobs at Burger King.

Next time I see that guy, I’m going to smack him in the head. How he makes the jump from thrash to this excuse for a band is beyond me.

Written By: Necro-tron