Finger Eleven
The Greyest Of Blue Skies

THE REVIEW

The wind starts to blow stronger from the trees, the only noise you hear is from a car in the distance. Nothing can break this silence. Nothing can even remotely touch your soul. It begins to rain. You should have realized it; you would have just needed to look out the window and gaze at the sky for a few seconds: numerous clouds of various shapes had quickly condensed, then releasing their heavy tears to the ground. There was something uniting the elements of this sad landscape, or rather a color: gray. The large clouds above were gray, the paved streets were gray, the houses in the distance were gray. Even that part of the sky that the eleventh finger tried to tell in their third studio album, exactly eleven years ago, was gray. What those five guys tried to do, however, was not to describe any sky darkened by clouds, but the grayer part of the sky. How did they succeed? What sound did they adopt? They chose the hardest one and did it by combining (and at the same time anticipating) what had already been created and what would be composed later.

The most correct formula to better describe the album in question, I believe, is this: take the rhythm and intensity changes typical of the early System Of A Down, mix in a bit of the old Korn and Slipknot (just a pinch), and anticipate the Rock-Metal crossover that forms the basis for most of the 12 Stones discography. Then, anticipate also the singing style of their lead vocalist Paul McCoy, also mixed with a small dose of Jonathan Davis's voice; now mix it all well, adding little by little as it condenses some elements typical of post-grunge. What has come out? A mess? A disgust? No, none of this.

What emerged from this union is that sky that Eleven Fingers so laboriously tried to describe, that one which will immediately captivate you with "Fist Time" and leave you suspended for a few seconds only to crash you violently to the ground with the harder "Drag You Down" and "My Carousel". It will enter your mind and manipulate your thoughts at will with "Sick Of It All" and "For The Ocean", abandon you for a few minutes with "Broken Words" only to take your breath away with "Suffocate", and once again take hold of your thoughts by throwing at you the song with the catchiest and most melodic chorus of all: "Bones And Joints". The sky will begin to clear up with the Depeche Mode cover "Walking In My Shoes" only to disappear, leaving you with "Say and Drown". Your mind is empty, the last heavy, distorted notes alternate one last time with the verses where the bass reigns; and when all the instruments stop, you will look out the window: the sun is there again in the blue cloudless sky, and your fears and thoughts have calmed down, now tired of frantically swirling like a hurricane inside your head.

The singer Scott Anderson declared that it was the most difficult album to compose.

Many songs are not available on the web (like "Famous") or only exist in live form, like "For The Ocean" or "My Carousel".

If you like 12 Stones, you will probably love this record. If you like the Nu-Metal of Soad or Korn, you might find it interesting.

Personally, I wonder how it is possible not to be able to listen to it completely.