III

Hot on the heels of 2011’s <i>III</i>, the Christian crunk-rock quintet Family Force 5 keeps the ball rolling with a companion EP to accompany its third studio album. The brothers Olds present two new songs and three acoustic covers of fan favorites. “Zombie” opens strong, with Solomon Olds’ scratch-textured inflections dropping rhymes over towering walls of electric guitar distortion and big muddy beats. When hitting a higher and nasal-toned register on the chorus, he sounds a little like The Beastie Boys’ Ad-Rock. The following “Cray Button” makes good on its title by dropping crazy deep dubstep bass, making for a standout party jam that’s so catchy you have to wonder why it was saved for this EP instead of being included on <i>III</i> as a prominent single. “Love Addict (Backwoodz Acoustic Remix)” shows how much fun someone can have with an acoustic guitar—and the segue from comedic hip-hop to perfect three-part sibling harmonies is extraordinary. The group treads close to Kid Rock territory in “Kountry Gentleman (Gatorbait Acoustic Remix)” with fierce rhyming over front-porch, backwoods slide guitar.