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.