FAME ON FIRE - LEVELS
Prishant shares her thoughts on the debut Fame On Fire album, Levels, and lets you know whether she thinks you should listen or not.
Fame On Fire have been known to the music scene as a band who push boundaries of rock, while moving into territories of hip hop, heavy music and more. They began their music career as a cover band, transforming well known hits into their own energetic rock hard style. Bryan Kuznitz as the vocalist, Blake Saul as guitarist, Alex Roman as the drummer and Paul Spirou as bassist, together they struck a goldmine back in 2015 with an amplified rock cover of Adele’s Hello, which currently sits at 25 million views on their YouTube channel. More recently this year the band covered Blinding Lights by The Weekend and Justin Bieber’s Yummy with 884K views for the former and 213K for the Biebs. But do they only do covers? Not anymore.
This September, the band released their debut album LEVELS, an album quoted on the band’s website as “diverse, energetic, and emotionally-wrenching collection”. Did the band succeed with their first album?
Fame and Fire appear to want to distance themselves from being a cover band, with their website literally spelling it out “FAME ON FIRE IS NOT A COVER BAND” on their front page, and this level of determination goes into the album. It begins with a short intro entitled ‘Cover Band’, a techno beat in which a voice asks ‘what are you like a cover band or something?’ followed by heavy guitar and drumming along with the repeated beat. It’s clear Fame On Fire want to showcase their talents as original creators and not just a cover band.
The album revolves around a universal struggle of fighting against your demons and not letting yourself succumb to the darkness of your own mind. A particular highlight from the album is the third track ‘I’m Not Dead Yet’ which highlights the message within its lyrics, especially in its chorus: “No, I'm not dead yet / I'm losing myself to the darkness in my head /Suffocating / Getting hard to breathe, everything is caving in /I won't let it / Keep weighing me down, but this isn't how it ends /I'd regret it /No, I'm not dead yet”.
The album’s fifth track ‘HEADSPACE FT POORSTACY’ also reinforces the feeling of numbness and being lost to those you care about and yourself. While there are particular high points throughout the LEVELS album, most of the music blends together with little difference between them. All of the songs do follow the repeated message of the stress of loneliness and struggle. Track six is an especially catchy song among the album, with Kuznitz literally shouting “BOOM” at the top of his voice for the drop and keyboard accompanying him.
Fame On Fire’s music share similarities musically with rock music from the early 00s including Linkin Park with their blend of rock and hip-hop, Fame On Fire are finding their own voice and sound to branch away from the illusion that they are just a cover band. Singer Bryan Kuznitz has a gruff sounding voice that can reach many levels of harmony which has worked well as they created cover songs across artists of many genres. Blake Saul also shows a lot of promise as the guitarist of the band, his rift and technique are impactful among each song, though again similar to the messages of the song, his melody does not change as much as you’d want.
With LEVELS you can feel their passion and drive, they have created some very heavy rock, angst music that isn’t as originally sounding as they might have hoped but does show they have the passion and potential to push themselves and keep experimenting. It is overall very energetic and vibrant and feels like a nostalgic trip to the music of the 00s. Just remember, don’t call them a cover band.
Prishant Jutlla
★★★☆☆