ALBUM REVIEW – “A Spark To Believe” by Miss Fortune

A very different band to the young hopefuls that released a song with Tyler Carter a couple of years back, Miss Fortune have gone in a far more mainstream-palatable direction with their long time coming first full length, A Spark to Believe. That’s certainly no bad thing, as vocalist Mikey Sawyer has a very impressive clean singing voice and the band around him are far more interesting mining the middle ground between Hands Like Houses and A Day to Remember than their more ‘brutal’ older sound. One of the more interesting Sumerian signings of recent times, this is a band with the potential for big things.

Anthems are the name of the game, and they’ve collected a good few of them here – it takes until second track ‘Ghost’ for things to really get going, but the next few songs from there sound massive and are sure to inspire big sing-alongs when they’re performed live. While for the most part things are pretty one-paced – most songs deploying the same high tempo, densely layered melodic rock pattern – little dashes of spice are thrown in, including a previously untapped sense of drama and dynamics on ‘Interstate 44’ and a rumbling metallic riff on the title track. The highlight of many songs is Sawyer’s performance, his strident tenor often outshining the instrumentation.

While A Spark to Believe does lack a clear smash-hit highpoint, or indeed one real standout track to elevate them to the next level, the album is well structured and notably consistent for a debut. Two songs see them step out of their comfort zone, with intriguing if mixed results – ‘I’ve Got a Five Point Plan’ is competent if largely by-numbers metalcore. The acoustic version of that earlier collaboration ‘The Double Threat of Danger’ on the other hand is a wonderful reworking that succeeds in outshining the original version. It perhaps would have been better suited as a breather somewhere in the middle of the album, but it does work nicely as a comedown to bring it to a close.

A very listenable and clearly talented quintet, Miss Fortune have the chops and songwriting ability to match Hands Like Houses and Pierce the Veil at the big, post-hardcore influenced melodic rock game. A Spark to Believe is a good, fun album, bordering on an excellent one, and effectively eclipses the band’s earlier material. They may be chasing their dreams right now, but may well be catching up to them sooner rather than later.

Rating: 8/10

[Michael Bird]

‘Chasing Dreams’

‘Interstate 44’