Five Iron Frenzy – Upbeats and Beatdowns
welcome back to the Skaject folks! our album this week is the debut record from Denver, Colorado ska band Five Iron Frenzy, Upbeats and Beatdowns!
i am worried that i cannot be impartial to this record. i did not mention it directly on my review of Demonology, but i am an ex-evangelical christian, and grew up deeply involved in a megachurch. that record spoke specifically to a lot of my own experiences growing up – rhyming with them if not directly mirroring them. at the outset, i added Five Iron Frenzy and The OC Supertones to this project because Christian Ska was both a relevant offshoot of the 90s American Ska movement and the bands were contributors to the larger genre, but because The OC Supertones saw some regular play in my house growing up. i wanted to re-evaluate my opinion of them, and see what i had missed with Five Iron Frenzy. that being said, woof i may have overestimated my ability to listen to like, earnestly created Jesus Music, and my first listen to this record didnt go great.
that said – i do appreciate what theyre doing here. this record feels a lot like a bunch of young, passionate folks earnestly trying to share how they feel. Old West is a critical look at the ways Christianity has been used as a tool of supremacy by folks in the past. Arnold and Willis and Mr. Drummond is a fun and silly track about Diff’rent Strokes. Milestone is a very introspective track, reflecting on an impulse to categorize. right up until the chorus i actually kinda really liked Beautiful America – while it goes downhill after, there’s a lot i like about the way this track uses their horns and the kind unrelenting rhythm that drives it into the back half, where the song lets loose.
and at the same time… theres still plenty here lyrically that completely turns me away from this record. Cool Enough’s lyrics are a kind of response to the music scene around them in an incredibly defensive way and falls back on the “we get our assurances from God” in the chorus, even as i like it musically until the outro. Anthem has a surface-level critique of a kind of American Nationalism but from the perspective of “me? i’ve got Jesus” in a way that reads very poorly in 2025. Faking Life and I Feel Lucky are textbook “all you need is God” kinda outreach, in different flavors. Combat Chuck’s about a youth pastor type guy. i really like the jokey voicemails they leave at the end, but i dunno.
honestly, while there’s some stuff here i could enjoy musically (they remind me a lot of the Mad Caddies’ early records, and A Flowery Song reminds me of some of Reel Big Fish’s poppiest music), i cant see past the Christian Outreach lyrics to give it a fair enough shot – im sure some folks find it harmless but that aint me. i’ll do my best as the skaject comes to future FIF or OC Supertones records, but dont be surprised to see me link back to this review in future discussions of christian ska.
faves –
dislikes – its complicated
Upbeats and Beatdowns – 3/10
next week, we’ll be looking at The Mighty Mighty Bosstone’s Let’s Face It.
previous: Tokyo Strut | next: Let’s Face It
this is the first Five Iron Frenzy release | next: Our Newest Album
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