Review THEM ‘Fear City’

Them started as a King Diamond cover band, which also explains the band name. While the debut album ‘Sweet Hollow’ was still very much inspired by the sound of their idol, Them began to create their own style with the second album ‘Manor of the Se7en Gables’. Power metal elements gained in importance, while the typical falcett vocals moved more and more into the background.

After Them had finished their three album cycle with ‘Return to Hemmersmoor’ new ideas for a concept had to be developed. The band succeeded in this by letting the main character KK Fossor make a time jump to the New York of the 80s. There he is looking for a certain Peter Thompson, who is supposed to work as a TV preacher and is a descendant of the Witchhunter.

Them tell this story in their typical way. Melodic and with a cinematic approach, the guys put hard guitar riffs in the foreground with songs like ‘Flight oft he Concorde’ and ‘Death on the Downtown Metro’, which you couldn’t expect from the band this way. At the same time catchy songs like ‘Graffiti Park’ are represented on the record and while ‘Retro 54’ already has an almost pop-like melody line, which in the broadest sense even reminds of Ghost.

In addition, ‘The Crossing of Hellgate Bridge’ is a theatrical colossus, while at the end of the album the musical versatility of ‘Fear City ‘ is expressed once again. There is the raging ‘The Deconsecrated House of Sin’ equipped with a black metal-ish riff, followed by the finishing and rather solemn ‘In the 11th Hour’.

Them have made with ‘Fear City’ a very multifaceted record in which concept and music harmonize very well. Here and there you get the feeling that it becomes too much and yet the band always keeps the controls in their hands.