Fing Fang Foom - With The Gift, Comes The Curse

With The Gift Comes The Curse is best described as "a roiling, dark set of dirges" or "something brooding and sinister." Those words come directly from the band themselves, Fing Fang Foom. Dark, textured, subtle and kind of casually drifting along would also be an apt way to describe this disc. Of course, all of that really means nothing in terms of figuring out how the disc actually sounds. Pretty much every track on this one has a decent mid to slow tempo, a piano line taking the lead, guitars supplementing the lead, a deep-voiced low vocal and the occasional scream to emphasis the point. Aside from the fact that I thought my CD player was repeating itself during the first three tracks (the intros are a little too close for my taste), this disc has a nice bit of diversity among its fixed style. "Yesterday Doesn't Exist" brings the tempo up, throws some nice bass work your way, all while keeping the ethereal sounds floating behind. The instrumentation throughout the record is top notch. With loads of subtle sounds and complimentary touches here and there - you could force yourself to find new things everytime you listened. It's a nice disc, but given that it's a self-described "dirge," I wouldn't put a lot of money on it keeping your attention with the casual listen. This band would probably be great to see live and watch them rip out the up tempo parts, but on disc they kind of hang out non-intrusively and let you do your own thing. [www.finfangfoom.com]