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Indie
Rock Show Review With a grassroots garage band sound, fire.flight is determined to bring back glam-rock with their latest release “/glam-rok/”. Hailing from Eustis, Florida, meet fire.flight: Dawn Futch - vocals, Wendy Drennen - bass & vocals, Glenn Drennen - guitars, Justin Cox - guitars, vocals, and Phee Shorb - percussion. If you’re into hard rock with a touch of grunge and heavy metal (3 Doors Down meets Nirvana meets Pearl Jam), you’ll appreciate this 5 piece combo who seem to have the pieces coming together with their 2 year plus formation. After winning a battle of the bands competition last year in Florida, fire.flight was given the opportunity to open for the well known & loved Sonic Flood during a youth conference at First Baptist Church of Orlando. Since then, it’s been intense rehearsals, major gigging and the birth of their latest release “/glam.rok/” which is sure to get them on the right road. With heavy rock guitars and a very minor key signature to just about every song, fire.flight describes themselves as “just a straight rock ‘n roll band who use their talents to glorify God.” The self produced project, although done on an indie budget, has fair production, mixing, and the band seems very comfortable with each other giving a tight performance. The lead vocals by Dawn Futch are strong and spicy adding a slight twang to them with a little hint of Stevie Nix. The guitar work on this CD is overall very impressive and creative, keeping up with a very current, cutting edge rock sound. The CD packaging is sharp and has a new vibe appearance about it. fire.flight is obviously serious about what they do and are going for the brass ring. /glam-rok/ contains all originals written by members of the band. Out of the collection of straight forward minor three chord progressions, the more memorable songs are those towards the end of the CD which stray away slightly from the power chord anthem and show a little more creativity in the chord sequence and melody line. Among those are the very melodic “Grey” penned by guitarist Glenn Drennen who seems to have written the bulk of the more hooky tunes. “Grey” will surprise you after listening to the previous tunes by its atypical clean guitar sound and is probably the closest thing to a pop/rock ballad on the project amidst the heavy rockers. Beautiful string work by Wesley Thomas, and here Dawn shows a more sincere and intimate personality in her singing style with a slight “Six Pence None The Richer” vibe, ala rock chick. With the addition of some great vocal harmonies from bass guitarist Wendy Drennen and kicking into rock mode with melodic guitar lines, this song has enough classic 80’s glam rock without being cheesy. A very nice guitar solo accurately displays the true glam-rock sound we’re all familiar with. Adding to the more glam-rock tunes are three more by Glenn Drennen; “Fill Me”, “Anthem of Youth”, and “All For You” followed by the very “3 doors Down/Red Hot Chili Peppers” ballad style of “Reasons” penned by guitarist Justin Cox. “Anthem of Youth” is extremely familiar with guitar riffs taken right out of another well known song you may have heard before. While “Fill Me” has a more glam-rock sound of the 80’s sporting a melodic pop/rock feel with a driving chord pattern that gets your attention, “All For You” has a bit of a Nirvana sound with cool guitar accents that make you look for a spaceship in the sky – probably the most well-crafted tune on the CD, taking us on a musical journey – well done dudes! The chorus kicks into a more worshipful mode and changes unexpectedly into another key signature which is the only major key signature on the album aside of “Grey” – a very rare find on the album. Although I would have preferred to hear more overall chord selections and supporting vocals on this CD, /glam-rok/ gets the job done for head banging rock lovers. All in all, it seems that fire.flight is on to something with their trendy image and is finding their niche in the music scene with their unique personality. Rock on!
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