35. Five Iron Frenzy: Our Newest Album Ever
Five Iron Frenzy is my absolute favorite band ever. Since the first time I saw them live I knew I was experiencing a very different band. I saw them at my first concert. I was there to see the Supertones (who at the time I only knew 1 song by). It was the SkaMania 98 tour featuring Insyderz and Five Iron Frenzy. While Insyderz and Supertones took the stage as very serious christian bands who while having fun definitely had a message to send Five Iron took the stage in Star Trek costumes and had a lot of fun making pop culture references.
I hate that I didn’t know who they were at the time so I was unable to sing along with their songs but the performance always stuck with me. Later that same year I heard One Girl Army, These Are Not My Pants and Dandelions (all from Quantity is Job 1) and picked up that album. It was okay, but nothing to write up about.
It wasn’t until I picked up Our Newest Album Ever a few months later that I saw what made this band so special. This album in 13 tracks perfectly covered both the silly to the beautifully poetic. While their career has always been filled with interesting moments ONAE was/is/will always be their masterpiece and the fan favorite. The album is so well loved by the band and fans that both of their live albums contain more songs off of it than any other FIF album.
Their silly songs are at their silliest (Suckerpunch, Oh Canada), their satirical songs are at their must lyrically intelligent (Litmus, Handbook for the Sellout) and of course it contains their Free Bird, Every New Day.
Even in the documentary The Rise & Fall of Five Iron Frenzy the band talks about how it’s undisputedly the most popular song in their history (by both the fans and the band). They talk about how every performance has a magical effect on audiences where they all sing as one. Having seen Five Iron live multiple times I can speak of the immense power this song has when heard/seen live.
This is simply a great record. Regardless of christian or not there’s plenty to love on this album.
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