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Flobots’ “Survival Story” isn’t like their last album “Fight With Tools.” The first album was filled with anger and rage and ‘shouting at the system.’ The follow up to the album is in ways similar but instead of all of that anger and rage the band has shifted to a message of hope and survival. That bleeds through song after song and the lyrics are meaningful even though the message is different. Lyrics and song meanings aside from things is the music good? It’s good enough. A lot of the raw energy that was on the last record isn’t on this record but enough of it is present to make this album a quality record. The frustrating parts of this album really can’t be helped. Part of the allure of the last record was the unrefined sound of the album. It had some budget in mixing etc. But it was originally released independently and the raw energy that Flobots has was expanded further due to that. With this record it sounds like they had a big budget to work with and I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing for this group. Sonically it's a different record. Lyrically too. But if you loved “Fight with Tools” you’ll like “Survival Story”, just not as much.