Listening to "Abandon Your Friends" makes me really miss the days of "Too Bad You're Beautiful." That's not to say that "Abandon Your Friends" is a horrible album because it's not. It's just merely an album that begs to display to everyone how much of a shell of a band they are compared to their older material, but, I never had high hopes for this to begin with. It's pretty much what I expected. Very standard, by no means jaw-dropping, but listenable-very much like The Fiction We Live.

I suppose my biggest gripe with FATA's evolution, or perhaps the lack thereof, was their decision to drop a lot of the progressive nature that was found on "Too Bad You're Beautiful" for a more standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge style of writing. Probably the biggest problem with "Abandon Your Friends" is it's just flat out predictable writing.

One thing you'll probably notice is that generally the format of this album is half of it is heavy tracks with Benjamin Perri and half of it is mellower tracks with Francis Mark. Their's very few tracks where the two are found together (Where Do You Draw The Line, Jack + Ginger, and Placentapede being the only three tracks where both vocals are featured). Past that, Inapprope is probably poppiest song FATA has ever written and featuring Francis Mark only. Sugar Wolf finds FATA music returning to something more alongst the lines of "I'm Best At Ruining My Life" from The Fiction We Live and again only featurings Francis Mark. "Vicious Cockfight" serves as a fairly standard metalcore track with only Benjamin Perri. Streamline is probably the mellowest song FATA has ever written, even mellower than "Chloroform Perfume" and only features Francis Mark. "The Funny Thing About Getting Pistolwipped" returns back to the standard metalcore with Benjamin Perri. "Kansas City 90210" reverts back to Francis Mark. Short For Show is entirely Benjamin Perri. Beginning to see a pattern here? A large portion of the album comes across like its a split release with two different bands writing two different styles of music intertwined in the phasing of the album. While some may argue that's a band showing off its versatility, I would only agree with that if the writing was above the average post-hardcore record which "Abandon Your Friends" is not. This intertwined variance serves the album little to nothing other than constantly shifting mood of the album and makes it feel like its all over the place, which it literally is.

I will say that, unbelievably, Francis Mark's mellower half of the album is far more of an enjoyable listen than Benjamin Perri's heavier half of the album. The vocal patterns displayed by Perri throughout the entire album are nearly identical whereas atleast Francis Mark experimented a bit more and as a vocalist, I woulds say he has improved. Unfortunetly, neither Mark nor Perri could carry FATA by themselves as the single vocalist of FATA which becomes dreadfully apparent when you listen to this album. In addition, the heavier riffing sounds so redundant and uninspired except for a few parts of "Jack + Ginger". I realized a good portion of the band is different from back in the day, but I also realized that we will never hear the same maniacal riffs that this band used to write. The title track, "Abandon Your Friends" is the highlight of the entire album and while it is a mellower track featuring only Francis Mark, it invokes a lot of the same emotion that their early material did and is really the only moment of the album that caught me by surprise. Everything else is very standard and predictable. Not necessarily bad, but certainly not great either. For $7.99, which is what it's on sale for this week at Best Buy I'd say its worth it. Any more than that, and it's probably not worth it. "Too Bad You're Beautiful" still sits at the top, and "The Fiction We Live" edges this one out as well. Maybe next time they'll get it right.

my main problem with this cd is that its too soft. softer than The Fiction We Live. LOTS softer! i mean, Benjamin is more like a backup vocalist on this cd. Francis practically takes total control of vocals. if you like songs like chloroform perfum or no trivia, then this cd is a great cd, but if you are buying this for the heavy aspect you would expect from FATA, then i wouldnt bother with it. there are only 4 or 5 songs on here that Benjamin even sings on, and even those Francis is singing with him.

these songs by themselves arent bad songs. if they were on another cd, from another band then it would be a pretty good cd.

let me start off by saying that i was very much looking forward to this, a lot. i loved everything FATA have done, that's why i'm so upset with this album. i listened to it once and almost threw it away, literally, then i gave it a second listen and found some songs tolerable. this isn't a horrible album, some people will likely enjoy it more, but not old fans. they took everything that made them good and threw it away likely at an attempt to go mainstream. hope it works for them but i also hope they release another album very soon and come to their senses and make some real hardcore as they previously have.

with this album FATA pretty much does what every other band that changes do... add a poppy sound and alternate the singing and screaming (which is very toned down).

some standout tracks:

vicious cockfight

placentapede

short for show

jack and ginger

and abandon you friends (title track) is quite catchy... after a few listens, same with placentapede

i loved FATA back in the day when they weren't known. The first record off ferret was incredible but now what happend? i guess the drummer wanted to sing more and do all that emo bs. I wouldn't be suprised if ben left he isn't getting any recording time. Its just a weak album,Ben leave just like your guitarist did, he prob couldn't handle the new sound how much it suked.

"This bandwagon is on it's last leg"

They have fallen the worthless ways of avenged sevenfold, and released an album so unlike their previous that the band should have changed their names. Tracks 1 & 7 are the only tracks i can stomach, the rest are just garbage. The lyrics sound like a 10 year old deaf retard wrote them, come on FATA, give us a decent album, this is junk. I would like a rebate for 7.99 which is what i paid for this so called "album"