Review Summary: A step up from crashings and a step in the right direction
Falling Up has found some pretty good success with their debut CD Crashings. Crashings was a more of a pop without much substantial music on it. Being a Christian band they really didn’t hit the mainstream but a lot of my Christian friends were going crazy over this CD but I really didn’t find much interest in it. I was everything but open to this sort of Hardrock Christian music at the time.
When I got Dawn Escapes from my friend I was at first very skeptical about this Falling Up band. I looked them up a little bit and I saw that they were and alternative rock band from Albany Oregon. After that little bit of looking them up I just put that CD away never to think about it again. I thought I threw it away until recently I was cleaning and I found this CD unopened in one of my cabinets and debated over whether or not to give it a listen. I watched some of their performances online and that’s what really convinced me to give this a real listen. They do some crazy stuff on stage. The thing that sticks out the most is when the singer does a flip off the guitar. So I decided to open the CD and start listening.
At first listen the first thing that pops out is that keys or snyths or strings start off every song except one. That’s really one thing that bothers me about this album. They start off every song just about the same, with a slow keyboard effect then they go to heavy guitar playing in the vain of a band like Incubus or Linkin Park or just about any other nu-metal band out during the time. But the thing that really sets them apart from those other band is their use of electronics throughout every song. The most evident song would be “Contact” a slow ballad song that I think is very nicely put together. The aspects of these keys really add a different dynamic unique for them.
The guitar work is usually in vain of Linkin Park but for some reason I think that they pull it off better, weather it’s open palm mutes or clicks I just think it’s sounds better. It’s not really dueling guitar and most of the time it’s sharing time with piano for the limelight. Usually that’s not something that you hear in a rock album but that’s what really sets them apart.
But the vocal work of Jessy Ribordy is really what will sell you on this album. His vocals are usually harsh and unrelenting and that might be a little bit of a deterrent for some people but on the other hand his voice can hit some notes that you would think would be possible for some with such a “gravely” voice. Most notably in the song Meridians he really goes all around the spectrum and it’s really actually enjoyable. Also he screams in a couple of songs including, Moonlit, so that also might turn some people off.
You might have noticed I haven’t talked about the drums yet. There’s a good reason for that. They are very bland and unnoticeable throughout the entire CD. A lot of the time they are programmed drums and when they aren’t they are probably some of the most clichéd drumming I ever heard. It’s just sad that the rest of the band is not to bad at their instruments and he is not really that good.
The thing is with this band is that you really have to get listen past the first 20 seconds or so to get into the real music. That’s probably what I hate the most about Dawn Escapes is that just about every song starts off slow. And also they follow a very structured form. It’s very, very repetitive but still very catchy.
Pros:
Voclas
Guitar
keys
Cons:
Overuse of keys for intros
Drums
Song structure
