Starting off with a grandiose orchestral introduction, the clarion scream from Dawn Richardson kicks in the door in before the rest of the band crashes the gate with the title track, 'For Those Who Wait.'. It wants people from the start to scream that it's epic, and the song justifies this by sweeping in and out of big, heavy electrics and light acoustics. Richardson's voice also changes according to the mood, feeling as if she was born to sing in a rock group, having the growl and not touching on an outright scream, and still sounding feminine. Everything is controlled here, and after Unbreakable, Fireflight know what they're doing.
A Hero, or Maybe a Monster
Such music, along with other female-fronted bands, can be so easily dismissed nowadays as chick rock. Fireflight showed that they're more than that with their last album, and it's compounded by one of their best new tracks, 'Desperate'. It's a looming, palm-muted monster that Richardson spits out; she has her own groove within it down pat. It has a great lick and has more of an edge than the next track, "Fire In My Eyes", which is dangerously close to being labelled a filler.
Thankfully, the rest of the songs try something different, with 'Core of My Addiction' starting softly before shouting praise. It's the nearest thing to a rock worship song, strumming along at a fast tempo, bridging with a drum-and-bass build. Along with 'What I've Overcome', it presents Fireflight as a band that has good hooks, meaningful lyrics and a good backing wall of sound to power the songs through. 'You Give Me That Feeling' also walks along those lines, with nice interludes during the verse before the rhythm powers in.
Guitar Surprise
'Name' is a piano-driven track, which makes for a nice break from all the guitars and drums. Instead of focusing on being slightly more emo, it does also sound like it's a little too self-pitying for Christians that can't overcome the problems in their lives. Fireflight has always been a band that can raise emotions, especially lyrically, but it shouldn't go to the lengths of trying to reach out to everyone, as it can quite easily be rebuffed.
The electro-beats then wake up once more to give a quick tempo'd one-two with 'New Perspective' and 'You Give Me That Feeling'. Both of these songs are suitable for the stadium to get a crowd going with their tightly structured riffs, but it still feels like there could have been more of an interlude in order to set themselves above others producing the same sort of music on the radio.
Waiting for a Brand New Day
The album comfortably closes with 'All I Need To Be' and 'Recovery Begins', with the former being a very breathy, acoustic-driven track that is always building up to electrics. It nearly pays off, but once more it feels like it's trying too hard for a response. The latter of the two is better, with a thematic ending just as the album began, waiting for God's voice to speak from within the quiet.
For Those Who Wait is a solid Christian rock album, but it doesn't really build on Unbreakable too much, which is disappointing. Although there are new grooves to Richardson's voice, the band really needs to be more creative musically. Adding orchestras and piano tracks does bring a nice change, but more musical interludes and hooks are needed. That's what we got with Unbreakable, and that's what we want again.
James Clapham - After winning his Creative Writing Diploma, James Clapham moved to Slovakia. He currently works as an English teacher there, and is also ...
