Firewalker – “Alive” | Thrash N' Bang!!!

Firewalker – “Alive”

Firewalker – “Alive”

“Firewalker was a favorite local band of mine a few years ago, along with the Gas Station Girls.”

That’s exactly how I started my last review of Firewalker’s last release about a year ago.

They’re one of these punk bands, along with Gas Station Girls, that seem to have a distrust of social media. So, damned if I know that if this band is still walking on fire.

Let me quote myself again-

“The diminutive lead singer still roars like a flame thrower shooting out its flames in a gargling, death metal growl. The band still roars out, too, with their mix of metal, punk and grind. Or more accurately, like a tiger in a cage taunted with a stick that’s ready to pounce.”

I thought this was a live recording and yes, the vocals were recorded live in Seattle from two years ago. But it says in the notes that the instruments were recorded in Tiverton, Rhode Island. I’m guessing not at the same time.

And this review is being written in Hyde Park, Massachusetts now. I’m almost sure of that.

But never mind all these locations and facts, let’s give this delicate music a listen:

After a spoken introduction, “Role Model” jets out at a hard driving and energetically, moderate pace. While the vocals low growl ably incinerates all objects in its wake. “It’s easy to find friends, when you blend in the scene. But we’re each on an island with a hazy mote in between.” During the chorus the music revs up a bit, then shifts into a hardcore beat before reverting to the original heavy, headbanging groove. “They go after us like vultures, but blame us in retrospect. For doing what they told us, if what they want ain’t what they get.” This is an intense, exciting, original song that doesn’t look to me or others for affirmation.

“Out Of Time” breaks out with slashing, heavy chords, a powerful rhythm like a locomotive and vocals that would appear to be the devil gargling on broken shards of glass. During the middle breakdown, with the rhythm chugging along still as a locomotive, but one slowing down as it is veering towards a stop, while the music menacingly struts along evilly. We abruptly miss our stop as we are brought back, quickly, to the previous, powerfully, ponderous groove- and then the song runs out of time.

“Cyanide” begins with a slow, heavy rhythm- like a jackhammer on the street except this one is digging into your soul. There’s a part in the middle of this song where the vocals move towards a high-pitched range with a frantic delivery. Then the growl-y, expressive vocals reappear. The ending part is instrumental and very effective in a gothic, Middle Eastern, mysterious, minor key musical sort of way. A great ending to a great tune of a great release.

Bands like Firewalker and Gas Station Girls, and other bands like them, would play small gigs in Cambridge at Hardcore Stadium and the Democracy Center about five years ago. These gigs took place pretty much unnoticed with little promotion, not noticed much by the mainstream.

As I mentioned, these bands had no facebook pages, no social media, they seemed to exist by word of mouth.

But some of the live recordings I saw on you tube, were some of the best, most real punk music I’ve experienced since TNB has been in existence.

And the fact that they eschew the mainstream and popular social media just makes them more punk in my mind. Though, it does make my job more difficult in tracking them down, I feel it was all worth the effort. And the power violence bands love to snub all existing music media, including me. But then again, I love them so much and I totally get where their feeling is coming from, and still completely support them.

As I do these authentic sounding, current punk bands- that is, if they’re still alive.

I’m almost sure that Gas Station Girls went out of business a while ago. But I did get to see them once, and they were so great.

Firewalker may or may not still be around, but there are still a few clips of them on youtube, a great one included here.