Kingcrimsonprog I really enjoyed the 2001 debut album Through The Eyes from Kentucky Nu Metal band Flaw, they were always one of the more underrated bands from that particular subgenre and the quality of their debut is up there with any of their more famous peers. I saw them live in 2002 and they were really good. Maybe the market was just saturated, at the time, maybe they didn’t get the right exposure, who knows? Maybe the manager didn’t land them the right tour…who knows? All I know is it sure as hell wasn’t for lack of brilliant songs that they aren’t as big as they should be. The follow up, Endangered Species was pretty good, but it came out when Nu Metal was falling off the map and hardly anyone heard it. I wanted it but didn’t ever find it in any music stores at the time, and this was before the internet was an obvious way to get albums. I’m sure you could, but I didn’t think of it yet.

Cut another 15 years forward to 2019, the band have gone through line-up changes (Wikipedia lists 19 ex-members, that’s up there with Cradle Of Filth and Annihilator for turnover), solo albums, a self-produced album and a reunion/comeback. The second album since their comeback, Vol. IV Because Of The Brave is now out, and it reminds me once again what a solid and dependable band Flaw are. It reminds me what an excellent vocalist Chris Volz is. It reminds me how entertaining Nu Metal can be when its done right.

It’s a decent album. 35 minutes, doesn’t overstay its welcome. Fair production job. Good solid songs. A typically excellent vocal performance from Chris Volz. There’s also a few surprises. ‘Wake Up’ for example sounds a bit more like Korn than Flaw. The album closer, ‘Lest We Forget’ is pretty interesting too. Its sort of mid paced alternative metal with spoken word kind of reminds me a tiny bit of what Queensryche were doing on American Soldier.

Highlights include the opening one-two punch of ‘Persistence’ and ‘Walk The Line’ as well as single ‘Conquer This Climb’ (which seems to be a bit more modern and almost slightly Djent flavoured for the first few seconds before it turns to the classic Flaw sound – but with a rather tasty guitar solo).

If you have any inclination to check out Flaw for the first time, then obviously, go for their by now classic debut first. This is good but its not as good as the first two albums. But if you are a fan you can relax knowing the band are still here, still putting out music, and aren’t disappointing. Overall; A welcome addition to the Flaw catalogue, if you are into that sort of thing (which I certainly am).

pointandclick Along with 40 Below Summer's "Invitation to the Dance", I consider this to be the strongest debut release to come from the tail end of nu metal's mainstream popularity (late 2000-2001). I mean, you can't even argue that this has more heartfelt artistic integrity than the poppy label manufactured nu metal of bands like Adema and Linkin Park, who also came out around this time.

On the whole, there is obviously nothing innovative about the chunky riffs or good/bad cop vocal stylings of Chris Volz, but all these elements meld together very nicely on this album. The heavier songs such as "Reliance", "Amendment", "Payback" and "Scheme" are just pure aggression with intense screams and wall to wall badass riffs. The softer ballad type songs are a bit more of a mixed bag. When they do them right, they are great (eg "Inner Strength", which has an outstanding chorus), but some of these songs end up nearly resembling bad radio rock/post-grunge. The legendary David Bottrill probably helped steer those songs in more of a Tool direction rather than a radio rock direction though (I suspect this was also the case with the Bottrill-produced Mudvayne album "The End of All Things to Come"). Unfortunately, Flaw's next album was literally nothing but soft rock-ish radio ballads, which is not surprising at all considering thats where all the money was post 9/11.

Originally written for www.rateyourmusic.com

Kingcrimsonprog By the time that Flaw released their second studio album Endangered Species in mid 2004, the Nu Metal wave had mostly dried up and the Metal Media were looking elsewhere for things to praise, as a critical mass of ill-feeling towards the genre made it an incredibly unfashionable thing to openly enjoy.

This, combined with reports that the band were rushed by their record company into releasing the album before it was ready, as well as reducing the heaviness of the guitar and vocals lead to many negative reviews and to the widespread ignoring or disapproval of the album by the public.

I think this was really rather unfortunate because Endangered Species is a completely enjoyable fifty minutes of well constructed, well produced and well performed music, from a greatly under-appreciated band who came out to late in a genre that was too overcrowded.

Endangered Species is unarguably a lot less heavy than their debut studio album Through The Eyes, with more melodic tracks and less screaming. If this is a problem, then by all means don't pick up the album. If however you really enjoy Chris Volz's clean vocals on Through The Eyes or with his other bands, then this is definitely an album that you should give a chance.

What the material lacks in heaviness, it does compensate adequately with emotive sections, an enjoyable and easily digestible formula and strong vocal performances. Occasionally they even wear their Tool influences on their sleeve for a few bars and create something interesting before returning to the aforementioned formula.

Standout tracks include the opener `Medicate' which is probably the closest track in style to the band's debut album, as well as the melodic `All The Worst' and the album closer `Not Enough.'

Of course, at the end of the day the album still is a Nu Metal album that came out long after all the genre's creators had made their definitive albums and that much can never change. If you don't like the genre at all or if you are only interested in the big radio tracks that are still played today then this won't give you what you are looking for.

Overall though, while Endangered Species is not the greatest album ever recorded, it is certainly nowhere near as bad as you may have heard and if you want more music from Flaw or Chris Volz don't let the negative reputation it has put you off from giving it a fair chance.

I personally enjoyed the album a lot, and provided that you aren’t the sort of person who will see the Nu Metal tag as instant evidence of poor quality, you may indeed enjoy it too.

Kingcrimsonprog Flaw were one of the most underrated and talented bands to arise during the Nu Metal era, releasing their exceptional major label debut Trough The Eyes in 2001 and falling into obscurity and disbanding after their second major label album Endangered Species.

This third album was independently released by the band in 2009. As such the recording quality isn't as high as their major label Universal Records albums and the packaging isn't as elaborate, but don't let that stop you giving the album an honest and fair listen.

Singer Chris Voltz still has the strong voice and lyrical quality to make Flaw sound both impressive and stylistically enough like you remember them, even if the line up shifts, modern playing and lower quality production job do make Homegrown Studio Sessions sound very different to the earlier albums.

The album as a whole isn't exactly the best material ever released under the Flaw name, however there is still enough high quality material on offer to warrant serious consideration from Flaw fans. Some of the tracks are very strong, such as 'Concealed,' 'Alive Again,' and especially album closer 'Blood Red Sky.'

Overall; this isn't exactly the same style or quality as you would hope for, but still is worth checking out not only to support the band, but also in its own right.

Kingcrimsonprog To my ears, it is a real shame that Flaw never broke big in the same way that bands like Disturbed and Linkin Park did. Perhaps there were myriad business and promotional reasons why this album wasn’t a world beating success, perhaps the buying public had just become sick of this style of music by the time this record was released.

Artistically at least, this album really feels like a lost classic. The songwriting, production and powerful performances are of a caliber normally reserved for the best any genre has to offer. Sure ‘Nu Metal,’ became a negative term in many people’s eyes but the fact of the matter is that, regardless of anything else, no matter how you choose to name it or how popular it is with the magazines, good music will always be good music.

For me, Through The Eyes by Flaw is just that, good music. An exciting collection of interesting and well written songs that have remained good in my opinion for almost a decade. Nothing on the album feels particularly dated, I don’t listen to this for nostalgia or as genre fodder. I still listen to this after all these years because it is just that good. Songs like ‘Best That I Am’ and ‘My Letter’ have a large emotional weight that you don’t expect from a band on their debut and there are still enough hard sections to make it fun and pleasant; rather than a self flagellating listening experience, wallowing in unnecessary misery.

Singer Chris Volz has a really strong singing voice and doesn’t get the credit he deserves, having talents almost unrivaled among his closest contemporaries. It is almost a shame when he has to shout, scream or rap just because his singing voice is so good. A far cry from some other singers who insist on dropping in clean vocals they aren’t really proficient enough to carry off.

In terms of musical style I can’t really give Flaw a big sell that will convince you to drop everything and check them out. They play that late 90s/early noughties Nu Metal/Alterative Metal with vaugely progressive tendencies that everyone decided they were suddenly too cool to listen to when metalcore thankfully brought back guitar solos and double kicks. I’ve never understood why people can’t just like both, music constantly goes in short periods of reactionary changes and people seem to take a stand on one side or another and subsequently loose out on all the wonderful listening opportunities available to the open minded who try both sides. Flaw may play a style you don’t like, but they play it so well that they deserve a chance at least.

To summarise; this album may not make it into the history books as one of the most important albums that the noughties had to offer, but you’d be hard pressed to believe that for the forty or so minutes you spend listening to it.