‘About eight months ago I had a complete meltdown on stage,” shares Five Finger Death Punch’s exquisitely named frontman Ivan Moody, before dampening the crowd’s attempts to cheer his frank admission. “My point is, I’m human and I make mistakes and I’m very sorry.”
By the sound of things, a stint in rehab since a car-crash gig in the Netherlands, when Moody appeared to quit the band mid-set, has left him in a better place. As modestly redemptive comebacks from the brink go, there’s something inspiring about this endearingly goofy Las Vegas metal band’s example.
Someone in FFDP was due to blow a gasket sooner or later judging by their work rate. The five-piece have grafted the hard way towards becoming one of the biggest new names in metal by playing many hundreds of shows over the last decade, all the while churning out an album every two years. In an era when metal seems about as fashionable as a wallet chain, their fusion of fast and shuddering riffs, call-and-response vocal hooks and sky-high choruses still punches through.
Even by the standards of metal, there’s a ridiculousness about FFDP. Their dress code makes them resemble overdone extras from Mad Max, while Moody’s lyrics could make a sullen teenager’s angst-ridden pronouncements sound profound by comparison. “I’m so fed up with everyone around me / No one seems to care,” he gripes in the opening line to Never Enough, while on Wash It All Away he snaps: “Fuck what you think about me.”
But it’s hard not to be won over by FFDP’s lean, focused and forceful songwriting, which takes full advantage of Moody’s variously soaring and plunging voice, and by a group so well-drilled they could probably do a slick show in their sleep. During Lift Me Up, Jason Hook’s guitar lights up in flashing luminous green as he solos wildly, lasers spraying the auditorium. By subtle contrast, an interlude of three acoustic numbers is audacious for an arena metal show, and it works.
When he is not theatrically whacking his microphone stand with a baseball bat until it’s bent out of shape, as he does during Under and Over It, Moody cuts a refreshingly unvarnished and earnestly flawed character, one who is easy to identify with. If his most recent example of owning his mistakes similarly enhances his realness, then more power to him.
• At First Direct Arena, Leeds, on 20 December. At Wembley Arena, London, on 21 December. Box office: 0844-249 1000.
