As Respawning’s pet Juggalo, I couldn’t not review this album. ‘Down with the clown’ since 2008, Insane Clown Posse (Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope to those who don’t know) have been a tremendous impact on my late teen and adult life, and watching them perform live in SWX in Bristol, November 2017, was probably the best night of my life!

ICP, who have been putting music out since 1990, are masters of their craft and throw themselves into every aspect of making and promoting their music. The music video for the track ‘Fury’ is powerful and heavy, and shows their rapping skills in the best possible light, and you should definitely check that out down below.

Now, the important bit, the music! 17 is definitely the magic number for ICP, and it was confirmed by Violent J earlier this year that the number refers to how many Jokers Cards (Albums in their Dark Carnival saga) that there would be before they hang up the clown paint and retire. Fearless Fred Fury (The 10th Jokers Card, but their 32nd overall release that consists of 6 tracks or more) is 17 tracks long including the introduction and also a track dedicated to a warning for the final track, for the ‘sadistic sexual nature and extreme violent content’.

There are various flavours of music in this phenomenal album, from the bassy and aggressive ‘Red Fred’, to the uplifting and positive vibes of ‘Freedom’, to the light and comedic ‘Seriously Hilarious’. My personal favourite tracks are the afore-mentioned ‘Red Fred’ and also ‘I Like It Rough’ (The final track that needed a trigger warning apparently), but my clear favourite from the album is the story based ‘Night of Red Rum’, the catchy beginning of which seems to play constantly in my head for reasons unknown even to me.

Fearless Fred Fury is not without it’s hiccups though. The lyrical content of ‘Game Over’ is pretty good but the constant and intrusive old school game sound effects put in by usually incredible producer Deverauxxx, just ruin the track for me so now I skip it on every listen through. Not too keen on ‘Hothead’ either, though there’s nothing really wrong with it, it just isn’t my cup of Faygo.

I love Fearless Fred Fury enough to strongly recommend it to anybody, and I think it could act as one of the best introductory albums to Insane Clown Posse and their extensive and impressive three decade spanning discography. Long standing fans have hailed it as a return to form for ICP, and their greatest album since the late 90’s! They have never done a bad album in my opinion, but I do have to agree that Fearless Fred Fury does stand head and shoulders above everything else the clowns have put out in the last decade or so.

I did want to have the subtitle of this review as ‘A Face For Fighting’ but that’s already a track on the accompanying Flip The Rat EP that was released alongside FFF so never mind…

I hope you’ve enjoyed this review, and would consider giving Fearless Fred Fury a listen. Insane Clown Posse have confirmed two more music videos this year to promote the album (Not confirmed which tracks though) so keep a lookout for those as well. If you’re feeling like a bit of aggressive music, but ICP isn’t for you, you can always check out my music on my YouTube channel, Void Euphoric Records. Thanks for reading. Whoop Whooooop.

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