FLAW — Through the Eyes

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FLAW - Through the Eyes cover
4.18 | 3 ratings | 2 reviews
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Album · 2001

Filed under Nu Metal
By FLAW

Tracklist

1. Only the Strong (4:20)
2. Payback (4:01)
3. My Letter (4:35)
4. Get Up Again (2:56)
5. Whole (3:52)
6. Amendment (5:20)
7. Scheme (3:48)
8. What I Have to Do (5:40)
9. Inner Strength (3:42)
10. Best I Am (4:36)
11. Out of Whack (3:47)
12. Reliance (3:26)
13. One More Time / Only the Strong (acoustic) (11:09)

Total Time: 61:18

Special edition bonus tracks:
14. Away (3:10)
15. No Time (4:09)

Total time 68:37

Line-up/Musicians

- Ryan Jurhs / bass, acoustic guitar
- Micah Havertape / drums
- Lance Arny / guitar
- Chris Volz / vocals

About this release

Universal/Republic Records, October 30, 2001.

Special edition reissue with bonus tracks released in 2002.

Thanks to Kingcrimsonprog, Unitron for the updates

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FLAW THROUGH THE EYES reviews

Specialists/collaborators reviews

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.

Members reviews

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

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