WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH 36 CRAZYFISTS?

Alaska (now Portland, OR) metalcore band 36 Crazyfists have certainly had a rough go of it. Their last three albums (including the soon-to-be-released The Tide and Its Takers) have all been released on different record labels — Roadrunner, DRT and now Ferret. Their last album Rest Inside the Flames was released by Roadrunner in Europe but the label declined to release it stateside. Makeshift label DRT swooped in and picked it up for release in the U.S. a few months later, not a fate I’d wish on any band, and the results were disappointing. Though the album achieved moderate success in the UK, it shifted only 1,858 copies in the U.S. during its first week of sales.

So the band has just posted a new song “Absent Are the Saints” on their MySpace page. As far as metalcore goes it certainly isn’t bad and it’s miles above retreads like all the bands on Tooth & Nail, Solid State, etc. But there’s nothing about 36 Crazyfists that has ever really stood out to me. At Download Festival 2006 they were one of the bands that Kerrang declared a “must see,” so see we did, and “must” is certainly not how we felt.

The new song is… OK. I feel like 9 out of 10 pieces I read about 36 Crazyfists mention that the band is from Alaska. Part of me feels like no one would be nearly as interested in this band if they were from somewhere more plebian like, say, Columbus, Ohio. Will Ferret be able to resurrect the career of 36 Crazyfists they way they did with In Flames? The Tide And Its Takers comes out May 18th.

-VN

[Photo credit: Brian Lee]