Firing At Statues – “Father Of The Year”
Firing At Statues – “Father Of The Year” – Single Review
I mean…they’re still growing…give these boys from Scotland some time.
In the world according to Spotify, this is after all, the fifth song they’ve released online – so let’s be clear here, Firing At Statues is really just firing up the machine and ultimately still just taking their first steps towards the spotlight. They dropped a three-song EP called Seven Years Bad Luck in mid-October of 2021, a single called “Monday” in the summer of 2023, and then “Father Of The Year” nearly three years to the day from the time of their debut…so like I said, they’re just gettin’ going in the grand scheme of things. Like any band or artist this early on into their career, they’ve got plenty of opportunity for their continued growth as they keep on tightening the screws, and establish their place in the music scene.
As far as my ears can hear, they’ve got the fundamentals down solid enough, and sure, I feel like they’ve got every reason to encourage themselves to keep going from here. In fact, as far as I’ve heard, Firing At Statues is already preparing for their first release of 2025 right around the corner here…and it sounds like they could be in for their most productive year as a band to-date given that we’re not even through January yet. But yeah…”Father Of The Year” ain’t a bad tune by any measure…it shows they’ve got the right pieces in place and that they can hold their own. I can certainly point you in the direction of a ton of bands that still had no freakin’ clue about what they wanted to do or what their identity was at only five songs into their career, so don’t get it twisted, Firing At Statues is ahead of the game in some ways too. Do I love this single from start to finish? I don’t know that I’m quite willing to go that far – but I do think that Firing At Statues flashes us all enough potential on “Father Of The Year” to get our attention.
They’re doin’ the Punk/Pop thang…and if that’s your jam, tune on in! If it’s not, then open your freakin’ mind, and give’em a chance anyway…like…c’mon…it’s 2025…you should be seeking out the opportunity to expand your palettes by now & diversifying what you listen to. Anyhow. From Alt-Rock to Grunge to Punk to Pop & back again, you will find all kinds of songs that deal with daddy issues – and hell, rightfully so in my opinion! Most of us have’em in some way, shape, or form. I’ve done my time there for sure, and when Everclear released “Father Of Mine” way back in my day, you better believe I cranked that up loud enough for my old man to hear it while I stayed barricaded in my bedroom down at the end of the hall.
Music helps us heal, helps us recover, helps us process what the rest of life can’t – and as far as I know, it’s always been there for us in that regard. In the case of “Father Of The Year,” there’s a good chance that music stuck around rather than the father in question did if you’re listening to the lyrics of this song. Firing At Statues has got themselves a highly relatable tune in that respect, and reaching out to the teen-angst parts of us is never a bad idea when you’re still young yourself. Might get a bit weirder singing about Dad when you get older…but I suppose I’ve always felt like the greatest Punk out there tends to insulate itself with a shelf-life that stops you from making music when you get past the point where the energy & attitude of the genre wouldn’t make sense for a bunch of old folks to rock on stage.
In the recorded sense, songs like “Father Of The Year” still end up finding relevancy long after they’re created, and until absent fathers stop being a thing, I’d imagine that that’ll remain the case for this track too. What I’d be looking for in terms of the evolution of Firing At Statues largely revolves around playing with noticeable purpose and intention…but that’s the kind of thing that continues to build through time and experience, which they’re getting more of every day. You wanna hear Punk-inspired tunes, even ones that blend with Pop…or really, any genre for that matter, being played with the confidence they need to make the moment real for us as listeners, and sound like it genuinely has that inspired spark. I’m not saying that it’s completely missing on a song like this one, I’m simply saying that’s the space where I feel like Firing At Statues has the most opportunity for their own growth. We wanna hear that attack…it doesn’t have to come out of anger or anything like that, so much as it comes from the place where you’re making music with the kind of determination and commitment to the moment, where you know your material forwards & backwards, to the point where you could play it in your sleep. That gives you the added ability to include personality and purpose into the music, which in turn makes songs like “Father Of The Year” and its message within become that much more potent at the end of the day – make sense? Right now, Firing At Statues has the framework of a good thing goin’ on built into their songwriting and their musicianship – but they’ve got plenty of room to be more daring, bold, and fired-up about what they’re creating…and if they’re listening closely to all of those bands that have inspired them along the way, they’re gonna know exactly what I’m talking about and hear the blueprint on how to get where they wanna go with their music. Decent cut though…I’m interested in Firing At Statues and in hearing where they go from here as they continue to define their sound, and their place in the scene.
Find out more about Firing At Statues from their official page at Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/firingatstatues
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