What started out as a bit of a joke and a means to just play covers and have a laugh, has turned out to be the main musical outlet for the majority of the band. Rich Ward was the main man in Atlanta groove core outfit Stuck Mojo, and as their fortunes waned, Fozzy’s has grown quite big compared to Mojo. What started out as a pretty standard metal outfit, mixing originals with covers, has changed into this modern rock sound. Now whether that was a natural progression or they have just gone with what’s new to make themselves popular, that’s not for me to say.
I like Rich Ward’s full fat guitar sound and he has a great ear for a groove and a riff, and he has become a pretty good songwriter as well. Now as far as Jericho’s vocals are concerned, it’s quite hard to hear them properly as they have been multi tracked and put through lots of tricks to fill them out. Anyhoo, the songs are where it’s at and the title track Judas leads the album. It’s a great modern rock track with lots of groove and melody. Drinkin’ With Jesus is ok – not a bad track but nothing grabs you. Painless starts with a lot of that already mentioned vocal trickery, and it feels like a mirror image of the previous track. There are plenty of fat chords, but there is no main riff to speak of, and a lot of the album is like that – it feels like a backing track for the vocal. Weight Of The World is just ok, and the side closes out with Wordsworth Way. It’s not a bad tune, apart from a short solo piece from Mr Ward that changes the vibe – it seems he’s been practicing his lead playing. Burn Me Out is what passes for a metal pop song today, and although the main riff is cool, the song sounds as though it was made in a lab.
I will stop there as you can get the feel of the album – it’s all generally the same. Chasing The Grail is when they changed their style and that wasn’t a bad album, but this isn’t my favourite for sure. I hope Rich Ward has a change of heart and steers the band back to be less robotic sounding, and a more natural groovy band.
6.5/10 from The Grooveman.
