EP Review
Fuck Rock – that’s
what this review is about. It is the genre-label under which raucous
Welsh foursome Falls choose to file the music they make; elsewhere
they call it Gash Pop and Sasscore. Well then. If any of this offends
you, you’re really not going to deal well with Falls, but don’t
worry, Coldplay are still making music. The chances are, though, that
if you’ve kept reading even this far you’re intrigued, if nothing
else, and oh, how richly rewarded you will be…
Falls approach their
music in broadly-speaking the same way in which a tornado might go
about changing a lightbulb, and the results are absolutely
mind-blowing, every bit as powerful and overblown as you would hope.
Clocking in at just shy of 12 minutes, ‘Dirtbox’ is a four-track
manifesto which harks back to the days when an EP really meant
something, as opposed to simply constituting the first four tracks a
band could shit out in a six-hour studio session just to keep the
SoundCloud page ticking over. You could call it a mission statement,
although that seems a rather grandiose term for the first known Fuck
Rock record in existence, and Falls would probably be the first to
agree.
Sounding like Every
Time I Die and Pulled Apart By Horses tumbling down a flight of
stairs after three packs of Pro Plus, Falls’ sound is nothing if
not full-on, exploding out of the speakers like a cluster bomb
spewing forth chunky riffs, weighty breakdowns and infectious vocals.
There is a deliciously addictive quality to Falls, who, like PABH,
sidestep the stone-cold seriousness which can plague
technically-accomplished heavy guitar music in favour of just having
an absolute riot; when a band lives for the music they make and
really cuts loose on every note they play it comes across, and
‘Dirtbox’ is shot through with an addictive positive energy, a
double-concentrate to the pretenders’ barley water.
First track ‘Man
Bites Cobra to Death’ explodes into existence before making like a
rollercoaster, rising and falling with such thrilling speed that it
never seems quite safe; it might make you throw up, too. Things get
even more fractious and creative on ‘GütterHaus’, while the
tempo drops on the stomping ‘Hammers?’ – at least until it,
too, gets its thrash on, hitting as hard as its namesakes. EP closer
‘Something About Buffaloes’ changes precisely nothing about the
formula which works so well on the other three tracks, and is all the
better for it. Falls have constructed an anarchic sonic fingerprint
which is all their own, and at this stage of their career they are
absolutely right to curl those fingers into a fist and smack the
listener between the eyes with it.
There is certainly an
element of blunt-force power in Falls’ music, but underestimate
‘Dirtbox’ at your peril – the playing is absolutely watertight,
and the skill and musicality involved in restraining the eclectic
ideas into song-shaped structures is breathtaking, when you stop to
think about it. But you probably won’t get a chance – Falls don’t
let technique take over, preferring to let the music do the talking,
or should that be bawling, and you really have no option but to sit
down, shut up and listen. The day we see a Fuck Rock category in HMV
– sorry, on Amazon – will be a fine day indeed.
Buy 'Dirtbox' (Name your price)
Watch 'Hammers'