[Release Review] F.K.Ü – 4: Rise of the Mosh Mongers (Napalm Records)

The latest release from F.K.Ü, 4: Rise of the Mosh Mongers, made me squeal with glee. I love F.K.Ü, and this release is an essential addition to both fans’ collections, and thrashers’ collections in general.

I’ve been a fan of F.K.Ü for what feels like a long time. In reality, it’s probably more that I got into F.K.Ü less than 10 years ago on the recommendation of friends, but have listened to the band so much that it’s like they’ve been with me forever.
This gives you some context, then, for why I squealed with delight when I saw I had the opportunity to review the band’s latest offering for About.com Heavy Metal (link coming soon). Literally squealed. I’m not one of the many thousands of metalheads that scours news sites all the time; I like surprises. I had no idea that there was another F.K.Ü album on the cards. As I’ve said many times before, I love metal but I’m not a geek, and reading through my RSS feeds just makes me tired.

So, where do we begin?

4: Rise of the Mosh Mongers opens with a delightful sample; and one of the early tracks, Scream Bloody Mosher is full of sexy hooks. It also has a chorus that will have you singing along despite yourself.

Given the penchant that F.K.Ü has for horror movies (you know what F.K.Ü stands for, right?), it’s completely unsurprising that we find tracks titled Moshocalypse Now, Cannibal Detox, A Nightmare Made Thrash, 112 Ocean Avenue, Terror Train, The Überslasher, and so on.

As a kid who was a bit sensitive, I never really got into horror flicks until I was older; but even I get the references in the song titles. Although, I read good horror, passionately. Maybe my own imagination was more sadistic, and I couldn’t stand someone else’s rendition of a horror project. Regardless of the reason for my avoidance of horror in film for a long time,F.K.Ü celebrate famous flicks. Their integration of horror into their art is unique. On 4: Rise of the Mosh Mongers you’ll see honoured films from The Amityville Horror to Motel Hell.

It is a glorious testament to the nature of thrash (seewhatididthere) that F.K.Ü have so much fun with what they do. While you get a lot of thrash that is particularly political, you also get your other branch of thrash that, yes, has a theme, but which also has fun with the theme under attack.

As Pat from F.K.Ü stated in some recent promo:

We want to take our fans back to the wonderful days when the video store shelves were stacked with homicidal maniacs with murder and mayhem on their minds. A time when things weren’t dead serious and you could fill celluloid with blood and guts with a big smile on your face.

Unsurprisingly (well, unsurprisingly to F.K.Ü fans), the album itself is excellent. Filled with good hooks, lyrics that get into your head from the first listen thanks to the nice pairing of of lyric, riff, and rhythm, 4: Rise of the Mosh Mongers is an essential addition to any thrasher’s collection. The standards that you have come to expect from this band have continued.

There isn’t much wrong that F.K.Ü can do. Formed in 1987, these guys lived thrash at the peak of the genre. This is the reason why they write it and play it so effortlessly. This band is not reconstructing a genre, is not learning it by playing the thrash masters from the beginning to the end; they were there, man.

The only thing that I am a bit hesitant about, and not sure where I stand in relation to it, is the final track Anthem of the Moshoholics. It’s not particularly cool; it kind of fits the style once it gets going; it has some decent riffage; but it is totally unnecessary. I would far rather consider Bus Bitch Die (from Metal Moshing Mad) as my F.K.Ü anthem, and of moshoholics in general, short as it is.

Despite the final track being a bit of a downer, in my eyes F.K.Ü can do very little wrong. Even the parts of this release that start to lose their fun have a twist that brings them back to the fore. It takes skill to do that; and it also takes balls to realise when a song is done. Some thrash acts go on forever, and make us wish that these kids had learned to fade songs out before the last verse was done.

In short, my recommendation is go and buy this album and thrash your little arse off. It’s a release that Freddy Krueger would be proud of.

F.K.Ü’s 4: Rise of the Mosh Mongers is out on 26 April 2013, on Napalm Records.