JOSHUA FIT FOR BATTLE

Band: JOSHUA FIT FOR BATTLE

Genres: Emo-violence / Screamo / Hardcore / (slight) Metalcore 
Related artists: Hot Cross, Neil Perry, Welcome The Plague Year, The Now, Deerstalker,
                        Gleam, Heat Conference, Bessember Process, Kick Rocks, Paramedic! 
                        and Superstitions Of The Sky.
Country: Newark, Delaware USA
Years Active: 1998-2003
Song: "Sleepwalker's Guide"
Album: "Flashbulb Memory split"
Year: 2000
Label(s): Electric Human Project / Alone Records / Revolutionary Audio / Level Plane Records /
               Prizefight Records / Normal Records / Ohnono
This post's artist is from the January 2014 Mix. This is track #3.
You can download the January 2014 Mix#1 right here.
For fans of: Resurrectionists, Neil Perry, Welcome The Plague Year, The Now, Tel Fyr, 
                   Storm the Bastille, You And I, Funeral Diner, Orchid, Off Minor, Saetia, 
                   Mara'akate, Phoenix Bodies, Usurp Synapse, Ruhaeda, Get Fucked, Tempest,
                   Jenny Piccolo, (old) Standstill, Oaken, Buried Inside, The Flying Worker
                   Hot Cross, This Ship Will Sink, Rats Into Robots and Youth Funeral aka
                   PROPER Screamo.

I tried to make this short and concise, but I just couldn't do it. I wanted to start/end with something along the lines of:
There's a lot of great screamo bands around right now (or should I say skramz?) but no one really does it the way bands like Neil Perry, Off Minor, Welcome The Plague Year and Orchid did. JOSHUA FIT FOR BATTLE is generally associated with acts like these but rarely talked about as being at the forefront. Fuck that shit. JFFB was goddamn fantastic...

I couldn't do it though. Even though I'm afraid of not doing the band justice (the impossible can be difficult) I figured you could just not read this. It's hard to explain, but the band's instrumentals just speak to me. I get extremely "air-guitary" and tend do a rather unnecessary imitation of Aaron Turner from Isis, which means my head generally starts almost touching my back, then flies forward and almost touches my toes, then back up quickly, repeat. Like Neil Perry and The Now, this band plays a style of hardcore/thrash/grind/screamo/melodic/atmospheric rock that sounds nothing like anything outside of the aforementioned bands - most of which shared the same members who seemed to get on and off like some kind of hardcore/screamo ferris wheel.

With two vocalists, the classic 1-high/1-low combo, and Josh Jakubowski's crushing/melodic /thrash/post-hardcore/screamo signature that was eloquently smeared across (almost) all of his projects, JFFB is heavy. Even so, they include a lot of interludes during their songs. They aren't long, per say, but they break up the chaos and are infectious as hell. There's some serious Jenny Piccolo and Ruhaeda parts (whether they were influenced or not seems irrelevant) - and obviously Josh Jakubowski's other bands Neil Perry and The Now, as well as other band members' projects like Welcome The Plague Year and Get Fucked.
If you'd like some songs that encapsulate JFFB, look no further than these 2 ditties:

"To Bring Our Own End" (from 'Neil Perry' split)

(soft and hard parts)

"Dreams" (from 'Flashbulb Memory' split)

(typical JFFB destruction)

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Next up, my personal favourite "Classic Song/Behind the Veil/Sleepwalker's Guide" is definitely the band's "classic song". Immaculate.

"Behind the Veil" (from 'Flashbulb Memory' split)

(epic!)

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Here is what the band sounded like upon its inception. Very similar to their later stuff, but it a little subdued and meanders in Funeral Diner territory much more than the band's later and WAY more aggressive stuff.

"Song One" (from 'Bring Out Your Dead')

(early song)

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"Blood Money" is probably the strongest track from the band's final output, 'To Bring Our Own End' because the guitars sound so much like The Now, extremely heavy and fast but so rhythmic it's like a constant melodic breakdown at breakneck speed.

"Blood Money" (from 'To Bring Out Own End')

(melodic destruction)

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"This Is Me Getting Stronger" is the band's closest thing to an all-out Jakubowski fest. Where the fuck is this guy? I need to shake his hand through my computer screen - The Ring-style. And just as scary, because I'm a rabid fan...who may or may not reside in a well. Anyway, this track is a beautiful representation of the mind of Joshua, as you get to hear his bare bones melodies and accompanied by clean vocals, not unlike Stephen Brodsky's solo material.

"This is Me Getting Stronger" (from 'To Bring Out Own End')

(beautiful/melodic/ambient/serenading rock)

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Seriously. Get on this. Grab the discography. Listen to discography. Study the discography. Love the discography. It will never stop. If you like this band, you will love Neil Perry, The Now and Welcome The Plague. I promise.

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DISCOGRAPHY

Click )==>here<==( to download the band's complete discography in mp3 form.

1999 - Joshua Fit For Battle 7"
1999 - Love Lost But Not Forgotten split 7"
1999 - All I Ask For split 7"

2000 - Flashbulb Memory split 12"

2001 - Neil Perry Brothers From Different Mothers split 12"
2001 - To Bring Our Own End cd/12"LP

2002 - Bring Out Your Dead cd/12"LP (collects the 3 7"s from 1999)

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JOSHUA FIT FOR BATTLE out-of-print discography mp3 download / additional links

LastFM

(download here)

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