Hot on the heels of receiving major radio airplay of their hit “Handlebars,” Denver-based hip-hop/rock band Flobots are quickly becoming a popular crossover sensation with their second album Fight With Tools.

I’ve got to be honest here from the get-go: I do not like the Flobots or Fight With Tools. I know that’s kind of a brutal way to start off a record review, but just roll with me for a second. My first exposure to the Flobots was in the form of a hint from a friend on a band they thought I should review. As it was they had been receiving a lot of radio airplay recently, and so, eager to not miss out on a potential hip-hop breakout hit, I tuned in. What I found initially soured my ears, and try as I might, I haven’t been able to shake the sensation. Despite their rebellious lyrics, genre-fusion, positive outlook, and progressive political activism, Fight With Tools just bothers me.

To begin with, the Flobots are billed as a hip-hop/indie rock band. The last band I heard to carry the same label was Gym Class Heroes, who, while garnering some major fame, are musically meager and poor lyricists, so I was already perhaps a bit prejudiced. Still, there exist other indie bands with rappers such as Hangar 18 or Nouveau Riche which manage to create unique music (in the case of the latter) or script rhymes skillfully (as do the former).

Thus, I decided to give the Flobots a chance and procured Fight With Tools. The album opens with “There’s a War Going On For Your Mind,” a spoken-word track that debuts rapper Brer Rabbit and pays homage to their poetry slam influences. An abstracted indictment of the state of today’s social landscape, “There’s a War Going On…” gave me high hopes for Fight With Tools with its opening passage:

There’s a war going on for your mind
Media mavens mount surgical strikes from trapper keeper collages and online magazine racks
Cover girl cutouts throw up pop-up ads
Infecting victims with silicone shrapnel
Worldwide passenger pigeons deploy paratroopers
Now it’s raining pornography
Lovers take shelter
Post-production debutantes pursue you in nascar chariots
They construct ransom letters from biblical passages and bleed mascara into holy water supplies

Yet those hopes were dashed as the beginning guitar riffs of the next song, “Mayday!!!” pealed out of my speakers. A confused jumble of pop-rock choruses, funk-riddled raps, and live viola loops made me want to toss the disc out the window. “Mayday!!!” introduces Jonny 5, the other (and sadly, more prevalent) rapper, whose flow sounds less practiced than Brer Rabbit’s. “Mayday!!!” sets the tone for the rest of Fight With Tools, which is a mashup of attempts at unique or curious instrumentation that fall short of their marks, spliced with rapping that reminds me of a politically informed Atmosphere cover act.

I may be coming off as overly harsh, and for the moment, let me step back and at least address what it is that this band does right: they are definitely adept at creating catchy pop rock. While to me the sound of the band itself is at times disjointed, there are many times that melodious music is being made. At its best, Fight With Tools musically shows the Flobots have promise as a sonically mature band. Though, when they fail, they fail hard (think rapping Yellowcard - violin and all).

“Same Thing” is a good example of their mis-matching; a funky, easily dance-able track is well put together, with loud horn hits, lively string plucks, and sing-songy hooks. Yet at the same time, the lyrics fail. An attempt at socially conscious party music is rife with overused generalizations regarding US foreign intervention and domestic policy, only making a pointed statement by referencing an encyclopedic list of deceased leftist leaders. For me, this kind of songwriting is nothing special; rappers like Immortal Technique and Saul Williams have done a better job at skewering our bloody past and future folly. Sadly, it seems the Flobots don’t realize the truth to their words when they sing “Saying the same things over again/Repeatin the same slogans we don’t know where we’ve been.”

Out of all of their music, I feel perhaps the Flobots‘ biggest letdown has been their biggest hit. “Handlebars” has been amassing the Flobots national press. It has peaked at #3 on Billboard’s Rock Charts, received over 760,00 plays on their Myspace page, and the video has seen similar success on YouTube, receiving over 880,000 plays. For all their popularity, however, Handlebars, for me, leaves something to be desired. Musically, it is unremarkable; easy pop fare that is just as easily forgotten. Lyrically, I find it both simplistic and contradictory. Jonny 5 starts with the classic hip-hop style of self promotion, though lacking the edge or bite commonly found in self-aggrandizing raps, instead deciding to brag about how he can ride his bike handless, nearly repair a remote control, and tell me all about Leif Ericson. He goes on to list what innovation and achievement America is capable of:

Look at me
Look at me
Just called to say that it’s good to be
ALIVE
In such a small world
All curled up with a book to read
I can raise funds open up a thrift store
I can make a living off a magazine
I can design an engine sixty four
Miles to a gallon of gasoline
I can make new antibiotics
I can make computers survive aquatic conditions
I know how to run a business
And I can make you wanna buy a product
Movers shakers and producers
Me and my friends understand the future
I see the strings that control the systems
I can do anything with no assistance

I can change the nation with a microphone (with a microphone, with a microphone)
I can split on atom of a molecule (of a molecule, of a molecule)

His last verse is bitingly critical of American dominion, detailing our ability to ravage the planet with impunity. Ironically, this is the only portion of the song in which his voice evokes more emotion, raising to shouts and yells:

I can hand out a million vaccinations
Or let’em all die in exasperation
Have’em all grilled leavin lacerations
Have’em all killed by assassination
I can make anybody go to prison
Just because I don’t like’em and
I can do anything with no permission
I have it all under my command
I can guide a missile by satellite (by satellite, by satellite)

I can hit a target through a telescope (through a telescope, through a telescope)

I can end the planet in a holocaust (in a holocaust, in a holocaust)

I can ride my bike with no handlebars (with no handlebars, with no handlebars)

Jonny 5, in an interview with MTV, has stated “The song is about the idea that we have so much incredible potential as human beings to be destructive or to be creative, …but when it comes to taking on a project like ending world hunger, it’s seen as outlandish.” Yet on my initial listen, and each subsequent listen (even after reading his rationale), “Handlebars” sounds to me to be a song about white privilege. While it is definitely not a celebration, neither is it a direct accusation or denunciation. Likewise, their song “Anne Branden,” a song about a white woman’s questioning of Jim Crow laws in Mississippi, to me is unimpressive, as it tells little more than of a change of heart over a lynching. For me, it’s aspects like this that make it difficult for me to like what the Flotbots are doing. Their lyrics, while widely applauded as a break from standard mainstream rap fare, are considerably watered down when compared to the vast number of emcees with alternative hip-hop perspectives. To me, Fight With Tools is hardly revolutionary; rather, it is a recitation of common counter-cultural themes updated for the common era. If, as they claim, they are the new insurgents of a culture war, the establishment may not have much to fear.

Still, the Flobots are not all talk. A large portion of their press regards their progressive activism via their website flobots.org. A non-profit organization, its goals are “to provide a structure through which bands can invest their social and cultural capitol in efforts to increase civic engagement, volunteerism, literacy, and creative expression, and to build a community of music fans around these efforts.” Currently they teach classes through the Denver Children’s Home, but like most non-profits, they won’t say no to more help. Non-Denver fans can enlist in their Street Team, with the intention of doing more for their community than put up stickers for the band. While their national agenda is not yet laid out, with greater success, perhaps the band can truly affect the changes they advocate. Here’s to hoping Fight With Tools can do some good.

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