Regular Rebellion Results From The Circle In The Square!

The Good: Decent lyrics, Vocals are not bad . . .
The Bad: Overproduced, Vocals are very predictable and basic, Musically indistinct
The Basics: The Circle In The Square by Flobots illustrates just how hard it can be for a hip hop band to stay politically relevant.


As August nears its end, I am at the end of the Flobots experience (for now). While I was very impressed by Fight With Tools (reviewed here!) and did not have the issued most people seemed ot have with Survival Story (reviewed here!), after several listens, I am finding The Circle In The Square wanting. The Circle In The Square sounds like a number of other hip hop albums and the comparison one might make between Flobots and The Black-Eyed Peas seems especially apt on their third album.

The Circle In The Square is not a horrible album, but it is largely unimpressive and what one might expect of a politically-themed hip hop album. There is a mild musical progression between the Flobots debut and The Circle In The Square, but the album makes one thing that this would have been what The Black-Eyed Peas would have been doing if they had kept their music socially-conscious, like their first mainstream hit, "Where's The Love?" But because The Circle In The Square is generally mundane, it is hard to get excited about writing much about the work.

With eighteen tracks, with more than fifty-two minutes of music, The Circle In The Square is very much the work of Flobots. The band wrote all of the lyrics and composed the songs as well. Flobots plays all of the instruments on The Circle In The Square; this seems very much to be the album they intended to create.

Unfortunately, much of The Circle In The Square feels derivative. The vocals on "Gonna Be Free" sound like Anthony Kiedis and most of the raps sound generic and amelodic. Once again, Mackenzie Roberts's vocals stand out as some of the most distinctive of the album on The Circle In The Square. Her performance on "The Rose And The Thistle" is hypnotic and captivating in a way none of the other tracks are.

Instrumentally, none of the songs on The Circle In The Square stand out as a would-be single. Auditorily, the album is largely indistinct with none of the songs having a musical presence like the tracks on their prior albums. "Sides" sounds like a Red Hot Chili Peppers song and "One Last Show" could have been a lost Black-Eyed Peas track.

What saves The Circle In The Square from being unlistenable are the lyrics. Once again, Flobots has perceptive, politically-astute lines that continue to resonate even years later. Indeed, Flobots does not mortgage its audience when the group sings about gun violence: "Saw the wounds, heard the screams, thought about your last meal / How we ate like kings, how you led us all in grace / How nobody had foreseen what would soon take place / And when everything went down / The silence you left was the strangest sound" ("On Loss And Having").

Given that The Circle In The Square was released in 2012, it is unsurprising that they have some somewhat dated anti-capitalist rhetoric. The song "#Occupyearth" is a clear allusion to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Even so, while it has references like "And we're called a crowd / And we have the tools / So we sing aloud / And we stand up / And we all fall down," it still manages to try for some more universal messages like "I collect recollections / And echoed reflections of moments of loyalty / And defection and measure my essence / A servant or despot, storm or a tempest / Word or a sentence, was I heard or never mentioned" ("#Occupyearth").

Perhaps what is most notable about The Circle In The Square is that Flobots does not shy away from controversy. On "Wrestling Israel," Flobots attempts to tackle the difficulties presenting the nation of Israel in a musical fashion. With the lines "A measure of a man is kindness / Why do I preach to the choir and whatever my kind is? / My eyes are on the other side of minus / If my lifestyle tapes from the other side, I'm fine with / Threats to my climate hang in the air like promise" ("Wrestling Israel"), Flobots throws their hat into the philosophical ring of the Middle East quagmire.

Ultimately, though, The Circle In The Square is an unremarkable album and it leaves fans hoping that as the band continues, Flobots finds a way to create something truly captivating like they once did.

The best track are "Run (Run Run Run)" and "The Rose And The Thistle;" the rest of the album is pretty forgettable.

For other works from former Artist Of The Month artists, please visit my reviews of:
Blackstar - David Bowie
Remember - Janis Ian
Cold Spring Harbor - Billy Joel

4.5/10

See how this album stacks up against all of the others I have reviewed by checking out my Music Review Index Page where the reviews are organized from best to worst rated!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Flobots Seems To Want To Be Black-Eyed Peas On Survival Story

The Good: Good messages, Some decent tunes, Clear progression from the first album, Harmonizations
The Bad: Overproduced, Some very specific, late, allusions
The Basics: The sophomore album of Flobots, Survival Story, continues the band's social activism, with a bit less clarity than on their debut.


In an effort to put my current sense of political ennui in perspective and move on from my frustration, I made Flobots my August Artist Of The Month. Flobots is a somewhat obscure choice to focus on for a month - or what's left of it - but just because a band has a limited breakout in the marketplace does not mean their works do not have merit. Fight With Tools (reviewed here!) is one of the strongest full-length debut albums I've yet reviewed and the group continued to produce beyond the one album, so I felt they were worth study.

While I am only on their second album, Survival Story is pulling me in the direction that Flobots is a band that has not yet hit its full commercial potential because they were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. I can completely understand how much it sucks to be at the right place, right time, with the right message . . . only to discover that the vast majority of the world is facing another direction and it is impossible to get their attention. Survival Story begins with "Cracks In The Surface" and there is immediately the feeling that Flobots missed its window of relevance. For sure, the issues the made Hurricane Katrina from a natural disaster into a profound failure of government institutions and human decency remain largely unfixed in the United States, but "Cracks In The Surface" is a poor lead to an album that wants to present anything that is not part of the current news cycle.

Survival Story is an album comprised of a dozen songs, clocking out at 51:04. All of the songs are written or cowritten by members of Flobots. The Flobots sextet provides all of the lead vocals and play the bulk of the instruments on Survival Story. The only major credit Flobots do not receive on Survival Story is in production, but it generally appears to be the album the band intended to make.

The instrumentation on Survival Story is predictably diverse, which continues Flobots's experimental nature. Songs on Survival Story sound different from each other and yet the album manages to come together well, so it does not just sound like a random collection of singles of different genres. The straight out rock and roll sound of "Cracks In The Surface" opens Survival Story, but few of the songs try to stay neatly within a single genre. "The Effect" would be a pretty straightforward rap, save that it includes a viola. "By The Time You Get This Message..." is very straightforward, simply rock and roll; fortunately, it is immediately followed by the violas and more sweeping sound of "Airplane Mode." The straightforward rap of "Whip$ And Chain$" plays off of the balladlike vocals that open "Good Soldier." And those who complain that the songs on Survival Story are too much of a departure from those on the Flobots debut album, there are tracks like "Superhero" and "White Flag Warrior," which help ground the album with some sense of familiarity.

Arguably one of the biggest differences in the sound of Survival Story versus Fight With Tools is in the way the vocals are produced. On songs like "Infatuation," there are clear production elements being used like echo and the effect is occasionally distracting. Moreover, several songs have the vocals drown out by instrumental accompaniment and production elements. In contrast, the strong feminine voice of Mackenzie Roberts explodes with a very natural and raw quality on "Defend Atlantis" and in the opening of "Good Soldier." Brer Rabbit raps mostly clearly on Survival Story and when his vocals are not being sublimated to the instrumental accompaniment, Jamie Laurie's vocals are generally good and articulate.

Survival Story illustrates a thematic progression from Fight With Tools. Flobots sing about new issues like global warming on "Defend Atlantis" and the blend of human emotion and corporate greed issues on "Infatuation." There is almost a musical storysong quality to the argument "That was as far as the tide came in / I remember the starfish and the wails of the sirens then / We replaced the tridents, embraced Poseidon / And discovered ourselves living on an island / We flow like water across the lost city / Chalk prophecies and washed off graffiti / In continents / Trade off for payoff" ("Defend Atlantis") that makes the song both relatable and original.

Like "Handlebars" on Fight With Tools, Flobots explore consequences on Survival Story with "If I." "If I" is a smart storysong that provides biographies for members of Flobots and explores how their environments shaped them. With lines like "If I hadn’t grown up in the 80’s / Experiencing the various things that made me / Would I still be standing center stage / Trying to innovate new ways to demonstrate? /If mommy daddy hadn’t turned off Mork and Mindy / To inform us divorce was pending / Would him and me have spent these 23 years in a frenzy / Moving back and forth with such forceful energy" ("If I"), Flobots creates a surprisingly powerful anthem about themselves and the universal nature of consequences in the world.

"Whip$ And Chain$" is a very typical Flobots song in that it boldly decries the power of corporations while using a number of clever allusions and references. The song blends the universal - "We pay into easing these pains / 'Cause the history is difficult / Wish the results could be flipped like reciprocals / Allow me to renumerate aloud the typical rude awakenings of the drowsy consumer base" - with the incredibly specific "Strange fruit I roll up in my Ford Taurus / Emissions I wont pass like Gandalf at Moria" ("Whip$ And Chain$") with somewhat mixed results. There are a few dated references, though largely Flobots attempts to make statements that would outlive 2010 (when the album was released).

Survival Story might lack the initial impact of Fight With Tools, but after multiple listens, the album is generally a decent one. Flobots has something to say and, objectively considered, it is both more creative and successfully-executed than most works on the market.

The best track is "If I," the low point is the unmemorable "The Effect."

For other works from former Artist Of The Month artists, please visit my reviews of:
Ten Love Songs - Susanne Sundor
Useless Trinkets: B-Sides, Rarities, and Unreleased 1996 - 2006 - Eels
Endless Forms Most Beautiful - Nightwish

6/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Flobots Is My August Artist Of The Month! Fight With Tools Starts Them Strong!

The Good: Impressive lyrics, Great musical diversity, Generally decent voice
The Bad: Some dated references, Short
The Basics: Flobots has an impressive debut with Fight With Tools, an album loaded with political references that (mostly) holds up even now!


When I first met the woman who would become, incredibly quickly, my wife, we shared music with one another. There was a song or two she was enamored with at the time that managed to stick in my head, but the years I have on her gave me musical tastes that are a bit different from her and her newfangled music. Despite having some very different musical tastes, one of the two music videos that she shared with me early on was a video for the Flobots song "Handlebars" and I agreed with her that it was brilliant - both musically and as a music video. After a particularly brutal political season in the United States, I decided to make Flobots my August Artist Of The Month and delve into their musical library to see what they had outside the single, incredibly impressive, single.

The debut album of Flobots is Fight With Tools and it is far more than the one single. Fight With Tools might well be the single most important political album since Public Enemy's Fear Of A Black Planet (reviewed here!). My primary concern before listening to Fight With Tools was that the alternative album's appeal might not have survived the events of the Bush Administration - that their specific allusions might make their work dated. Fortunately, or perhaps the most tragic statement on American politics yet, most of Fight With Tools remains relevant today.

With only twelve tracks, clocking out at 45:35, perhaps the biggest strike against Fight With Tools is that it is short. All of the songs are written and composed by the sextet who make up the band Flobots. They provide all of the vocals and play most of the instruments and the band is credited with producing Fight With Tools. As a result, it is hard to argue that the resulting album is anything other than what the band intended it to be.

Instrumentally, Fight With Tools is a pleasantly diverse album. Neither a simple rock band with bass, guitars and drum, nor a typical hip-hop group with synths and samples overwhelming, Flobots chart their own musical course balancing the melodies they create with their vocals. Relying upon a decent array of instruments - trumpets and cellos interact with bass and drums - Flobots created a truly musical album with alternating harmonization and chants. What might surprise those who decry hip hop and modern rock is how many of the songs have very memorable melodies - from the transitory musical experience of "Handlebars" to the pounding, hypnotic crescendo of "Rise," Fight With Tools illustrates that Flobots was committed from the very beginning to creating music, not just message.

Instead of just angry men yelling, which is the foundation of a lot of rap and hip-hop, Flobots tries to push beyond that on Fight With Tools. For sure, "Rise" and "Stand Up" have vocals that sound like what one would expect from the Beastie Boys, but most of Fight With Tools allows the two lead singers of Flobots to be melodic and clearly state their lyrical cases with vocals that illustrate a decent range. On a couple of songs, like "Never Had It," the vocals are dominated by Mackenzie Roberts and her voice offers a strong contrast to keep Fight With Tools auditorily interesting. Regardless of whether it is Roberts, Brer Rabbit, Andy Guerrero or Jonny 5 providing the vocals, the vocals on Fight With Tools are almost entirely comprehensible, which is critical for an album that has a strong political message that it actually wants understood.

And the bulk of Fight With Tools is unabashedly political, pushing a strong liberal agenda against an overbearing government that places profit for corporations over the welfare of the citizens governed. With lines like "I pound on this table / 'Til it gives me something to say / Then I think about things that I've seen / Right in front of me / That I don't wanna believe / Gimme one of these mikes / Lemme let 'em know / The way that it is is not how it's gonna be" ("Mayday!!!"), Flobots declare an eagerness to stand up for the needs of the common people. On Fight With Tools, Flobots take on government intervention in foreign governments, wars for oil, racism, and corporate profiteering over human life in incidents like the government response to Hurricane Katrina.

While "Handlebars" has an impressive music video that makes explicit the divergent lives that illustrate lives of creativity versus dictatorship, there are much more specific and powerful lines in "Stand Up" and "Same Thing." When Flobots sings about how "We shall not be moved / Except By a child with no socks and shoes / If you've got more to give then you've got to prove / Put your hands up and I'll copy you / Stand up We shall not be moved / Except by a woman dying from the loss of food" ("Stand Up"), it is hard for Americans - humans everywhere, really - not to empathize and want to get involved with the struggle to fight such injustices.

There are, alas, some dated lyrics and very specific allusions. Having lived through the early-00s, I can easily recall "Move / Like the dude from Chappelle's show . . .This is out of hand like Buster Bluth / Leave you sounding like Rusted Root " ("The Rhythm Method (Move!)"), but those allusions lack some of the universal quality of most of the messages on Fight With Tools. That does not make the album bad, but it does date a few of the songs.

That is not, however, nearly enough to sink the album. Fight With Tools is a powerful album that attempts to awaken the American populace to rebellion against the status quo. This should be the soundtrack of any activist working in the United States today.

The best track is "Stand Up," the low point is probably "Never Had It," which is good but probably suffers by comparison from simply being right after "Handlebars."

For other, prior, Artist Of The Month works, please visit my reviews of:
Greatest Hits - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Unplugged: The Complete 1991 And 2001 Sessions - R.E.M.
Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel

9/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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