The new record “Got Your Six” from Five Finger Death Punch picks right up from where they left off with their last release, the double album ”The Wrong Side of Heaven and The Righteous Side of Hell,” in 2013. In the military, “got your six” means “I’ve got your back.” With this new record, FFDP has the six of music fans everywhere by continuing their style of mixing heaviness and melody in many of their songs while keeping their edge.

The first song, which is the record’s title track, opens with a slow guitar bit, then you hear singer Ivan Moody yell “Charge” followed by FFDP’s heavy hitting style. With lyrics such as “I’m a f****** soldier just like I told ya” and “Out on the battleground let’s take a look around, well there’s a million of us ready to throw down,” this song should go over well with members of the military.

The first single, “Jekyll and Hyde,” is a song that was built around actual voicemail messages that Moody left for his band mates. With such lyrics as “You’ve got rocks in your head, I can hear them rolling ‘round,” this should resonate with everyone, as we all know someone we would like to say this to. This song has a very catchy sing along quality, which is not standard FFDP. This record is slightly more melodic than heavy, yet still manages to maintain the band’s signature style.

The songs “No Sudden Movement,” “Boots and Blood” and “You’re Not My Kind” are the heavy, in-your-face tempo songs that one would expect from FFDP with Moody’s standard growling vocals, Jeremy Spencer’s hard hitting double bass and heavy guitar riffs from both Zoltan Bathory and Jason Hook.

While the band said there were no ballads on this record, the track “Digging My Own Grave” and bonus track “I Apologize” are mellower songs in the vein of “Wrong Side of Heaven” and “Battle Born” from the previous albums. While they are not typical ballads, they fit the mold of the less aggressive side of the band’s catalog.

Many of the band’s songs contain explicit lyrics. However, in many cases, the songs could be written without this type of language. In the case of Five Finger Death Punch, the profanity serves to add to the point the band is trying to make.

While many feel that this is the band’s most uninspired record since they burst onto the metal scene in 2007, the truth is that the worst effort from Ivan Moody and company is much better than what is being pushed out by the record industry on a regular basis.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5