Flobots’ “Survival Story”

Denver, Colo. sextet Flobots return with their third album, Survival Story. Set for a March 16 release via Universal Republic, it features a set of political barnstormers that will undoubtedly excite their fan base. The real question, however, is if they have a new set of songs as memorable as 2008’s breakout single “Handlebars.”

While you wait for the answer, chew over this chunk of bio:

Survival Story is a vision of hope for a world facing its limits. While others revel in the dystopian, the Flobots remain committed to their ability to rise together. Navigating the coming years will require new tools. It will require narratives that cause us to reexamine our priorities, redefine wealth, and re-inspire ourselves. It will require that we come together in the face of death and write the story of our own survival.

Holed up in Blasting Room studio in Ft. Collins, CO with Producer/Mixer Mario Caldato (Beastie Boys, Money Mark, One Day as a Lion), Flobots had a lot to get off their collective chests. They didn’t just tour the world they listened to it. From message boards to emails to comments left on social networking sites to actual conversations (remember those?), Flobots paid attention to what was being said. Andy believes, “Talking with the audience before and after shows gives us constant inspiration, and motivation, to keep doing what we do.”

Each and every person has a story to tell but struggle is a universal theme.

That’s not so say that the band that so eloquently declared on “Fight With Tools,” “We need heroes/ build them/ don’t put your fists up/ fill them” didn’t have their own internal battles while making their follow up. As Jesse opines, recording a Flobots record is “Like a virtual reality reenactment of the French revolution.”

MC Jonny 5 summed up the creative experience thusly: “Our greatest asset as a band is that we are six passionate people who invest ourselves fully into our music. We have made an explicit commitment to value everyone’s voices in this process. That means every time we write new songs we create a new process. It’s not always pretty, and it’s not always easy, but it’s the only way we know how to do it. If someone out there has found a formula for song-writing as a 6-person collective, we’d love to know what it is.”

“The growth displayed by the band over the past two years has been astounding,” asserts Kenny, “Our collective experiences in that time has informed our songwriting as a team, as well as our personal relationships and how we relate to each other as musicians. It’s evident on Survival Story.”

Says Jonny 5, “When people listen to Survival Story we want them to see themselves and their own stories, with all of their complications, questions, and frustrations. Rather than seek to hide them, we chose to embrace and even celebrate them as a part of a global transformation, one in which forces of violence, hopelessness and waste will be composted into fertile soil from which new possibility can grow. We want to leave people with a sense of excitement that a new world is emerging, one which has the power to shape, that a new story is being written and we must write it together. When the album is over, we want our listeners to walk away with a profound awareness of the cracks in the surface, a deep sense of what’s at stake and a strong resolve to make sure that new world is one in which loved ones near and far, known and unknown, survive.”

Here’s the track listing:

• 1. “Cracks in the Surface”
• 2. “The Effect”
• 3. “Defend Atlantis”
• 4. “If I”
• 5. “White Flag Warrior”
• 6. “By The Time You Get This Message”
• 7. “Airplane Mode”
• 8. “Whip$ and Chain$”
• 9. “Good Soldier”
• 10. “Superhero”
• 11. “Infatuation”
• 12. “Panacea for the Poison”