It is my conviction that Flyleaf has only enjoyed the success that it has, because they have a unique niche in the "Christian" music industry. They are a moderate to heavy rock band with a female vocalist that, on rare occasion, screams her vocals. There is no other band, to my knowledge, that does this, if they have, they aren't doing very well in the music industry, Christian or not. The only other bands that come to mind in the secular industry are bands like Straight Line Stitch, Arch Enemy, and Lacuna Coil. These bands have female vocalists as well, but Arch Enemy is strictly screamed vocals, and Lacuna Coil is strictly sung vocals. Straight Line Stitch does mix screamed and sung vocals, but they aren't doing as well as the other two (although, if we were going by uniqueness, they should be at the very top. When was the last time you remember a heavy metal band being fronted by a black chick?)
That being said, uniqueness shouldn't be enough for the band to become famous. The musicians should be proficient at their instruments, have catchy enough riffs to remain in memory, and the singer's voice shouldn't make you want to surgically remove your inner ear with a rusty nail. Unfortunately, Flyleaf fails at all three of these checkpoints. The closest thing to proficiency that I have come across in listening to their music is the distorted bass riff at the beginning of "I'm So Sick", which is not only extremely difficult to pick out as a "tune", but is, at best, mirrored exactly by the electric guitars. This is music, at best, rudimentary. Usually, either the guitarist or the bassist will get tired of sounding like each other, and branch out into harmonic or intentionally discordant phrases so it doesn't sound like one person playing different instruments simultaneously.
Lyrics should be adequately written as well, which is probably Flyleaf's strongest points. What they lack in poetic phrasing, they nearly make up for with brutal honesty about the Columbine killings, etc.
Sigh... ok. I've been workin on this post for well over a month now, and i just can't get it to work without my sounding like a judgemental jerk/music snob. Maybe i should just drop it. But it's difficult to believe that Flyleaf's debut CD has gone platinum whereas great artists like Buckethead are by and large unheard of.
Poorly ended, but it needed to happen. I need something new to write about.
