Tracklisting:
1. Come Alive
2. Emergency
3. Breathe in Breathe Out
4. Reason to Be
5. Falling
6. Zombies
7. Bottles
8. Bliss
9. This is Goodbye
10. Never Let Go

Fighting the Influence offers something new for fans of the increasingly popular indie/alternative rock scene. Unfortunately that’s all there debut album Come Alive long songs and repetitive beats will give the bands listeners. It’s safe to say the band has set its standards pretty low for their next albums.

Musically this album seems relatively flat, there is nothing that stands out or catches your ear. “Emergency” might have been a standout track if not for the repetitive drum beats and the guitars which drown out the lyrics at times. Along the same lines each song has an especially long introduction which adds to songs that are already long musically “Breathe” runs 4:25 seconds making it one of the shorter tracks on the album. Add to this the lack of diversity on the rest of the tracks you get an album that sounds very much like itself and fails to catch the listeners attention on the first listen.

Though not perfectly lyrically this album makes a bit of a comeback, the before mentioned “Breathe” starts out talking about our need for God and makes a nice transition into more of a worship style. “Bottles” will remind the listener of bands like Emery, but doesn’t offer much in the way of encouragement, the song picks up after the singer met and slept with someone he met at a club or bar. Ironically “Reasons” deals with the hope the gospel gives us for a dying world.

If there is a standout track on this album it is the opener “Come Alive” The song opens with “we’re on top of the world, life is beginning, this is the start of the war, between who we are and who we’ve been” FTI uses this song to make statements about our spiritual lives, the constant conflict between us and the world. Sadly it is the only song on the album with a real good balance between the darkness of the world and the hope of Jesus Christ. Musically this is also the only song that really grabs the listeners attention.

I really hope that we get to hear more from the Boston based Fighting The Influence but if we do I hope we get to hear them raise their own bar musically. As it stands Come Alive is good for one or two listens and could have been much better with the talent that I’m sure these musicians have.