FLAT BLACK – Dark Side Of The Brain

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7.0

• Band:
  FLAT BLACK
• Duration: 00:51:24
• Available from: 07/19/2024
• Label:

• Fearless Records

Jason Hook rose to prominence with a highly respected career as a session guitarist (shown in the interesting documentary he produced “Hired Gun”), in which he served pop stars such as Hilary Duff and Mandy Moore, but also rockers such as Bullet Boys and the legendary Vince Neil and Alice Cooper.
In 2009, Hook replaced Darrell Roberts in the rampant Five Finger Death Punch, where he would actively participate in the immense growth to world domination as one of the greatest rock/metal bands born in the 2000s. In order to conquer the Old and New Continents, however, the band came close to self-destruction, so in 2018 the founding drummer Jeremy Spencer had to throw in the towel due to back problems.
For a while, it seemed that frontman Ivan Moody would be the next to exit the scene due to his well-known alcohol problems, but in 2019, following a stop for an emergency gallbladder operation, Hook found himself replaced, realizing and officially declaring that he was no longer part of the group only a few months later.
It took years to resurface and put together a concrete project: unlike his friend and former colleague Spencer, who quickly launched into a series of adventures of questionable taste, Hook built a solid band and took his time composing an album that highlighted his varied musical influences, his guitar talent and his writing ability that gave 5FDP some of his best hits (above all “Wash It All Away”, “Lift Me Up”, “A Little Bit Off”).
For Flat Black, Jason surrounds himself with a brand new band consisting of vocalist Wes Horton, Rob Pierce on drums, and Nicholas Diltz on bass: young, talented and above all hungry musicians, with whom he can share musical passion and draw enthusiasm.
In “Dark Side Of The Brain” we find everything we expected from Hook’s new project, that is, a powerful and modern hard rock album with metal elements, with a very rich and dense guitar-centered sound, while still remaining extremely accessible. A purely American sound, muscular and groovy but without ever forgetting the great choruses, the great melodies, the groove and the technical and melodic solos of the leader, who also composed most of the lyrics. “It's Ok To Be Angry” correctly frames the mood of the album, underlining a bit of what we can find later.
As it unfolds, it will be easy to get caught up in the melodies of the poignant “A Bit Of Lightning” and the emotional “Tidal Wave”, but there are also more explosive pieces like “Halo” and gritty ones like “It's Your Lack Of Respect”. It's funny how the most intriguing assist of all, on paper, is practically the worst piece of the album: “Nothing To Some” in fact features none other than Corey Taylor, but it fails to be more than a shouted, awkward and boring midtempo that clashes with the rest of the album.
After a few listens, it's the heaviest tracks that aren't entirely convincing, especially when Hook re-proposes those 'grated' riffs that have always been the prerogative of Zoltan Bathory in Five Finger Death Punch, perhaps to gain easy approval from the fans of his former group.
In short, the quality is there, because Hook is an excellent musician and an excellent writer, but Flat Black's debut should have been more incisive and to the point to create an impact, engage the listener and form a very defined identity. Fourteen songs for over fifty minutes are a bit too much, and in the long run, as the listening goes on, this weighs, with the result that the new brand is not perceived in a truly strong way.
It's a solid work, with moments of great intensity and a good dose of melody that will make lovers of American hard rock (Hinder, Sixx AM, Dark New Day) happy: the fireworks are missing, but it's nice to hear Jason Hook back at work.