Review Summary: Way better than it should be
Its always exciting when a band decides to do something ridiculously left-field. It can be equally challenging and rewarding to have to understand one of your favorite bands in a whole new way. Having tinkered with more atmospheric/keyboard oriented rock on the very hit or miss "Captiva", Falling Up (a band that was more of a Christian Linkin Park than anything) took a dive right off the deep end and delivered a full blown concept album about alien planets, discoveratories, and other sci-fi crap with their fourth album, "Fangs!". Generally epic star sagas like this kinda suck (I'm looking at you, Ayreon, circa that album with way too many ones and zeros), but Falling Up had already proven that they could crank out some decent ambiance on "Captiva". More importantly, they had a secret weapon this time around: Casey Crescenzo, front man of The Dear Hunter, would take the helm as mentor/producer. So Falling Up was trying to put together an ambitious sci-fi concept album with the help of a well respected musician in the indie world. How does it turn out? Pretty well actually.
This baby is based on a screen-play written by front man Jessy Ribordy that is about...... well, I don't really know exactly. Some dude ends up on some planet and there's a discoveratory and a goddess and golden arrows and that's about as much as I can figure out. There are several musical and lyrical themes that appear consistently throughout the album that give it a decent amount of cohesion and help maintain a strong atmosphere. The music and production general combines straight guitar rock with swirling synth effects that really paint strong pictures of the insanity that is being described in the lyrics. There are some nice breakdowns at the ends of several songs (Lotus and the Languorous, Magician Reversed, Goddess of the Dayspring, Am I), a couple of catchy, in-your-face rockers (A Colour Eoptian, Streams of Woe at Acheron, Golden Arrows, the Moonn and Sixpence), and some nice atmosphere building tracks that really enhance the mood and solidify the imagery that the album is evoking. Throughout the album the sounds are dazzling, the vocals are fitting (if a bit lisping), and overall creates a vibe that really brings to mind alien worlds and spaceships and what not.
However, this album is far from perfect. As mentioned before, Jessy's voice does tend to lisp, which can be very distracting. The last three songs tend to drag a bit, seeing as they are mellow atmosphere pieces slapped right on the heels of two of the heaviest songs on the album. The lyrics range from cryptic to poetic to just head scratchingly strange, which can be off putting at times. However, the biggest woe this thing suffers from is that the songs are just too short. As a general rule, "Fangs!" succeeds when it focuses on varied and more ambitious compositions. However, quite a few songs on here are just verse/chorus/verse type songs with common lyrical and musical themes scattered through them. This hurts otherwise awesome songs like "Streams of Woe" or "Golden Arrows" from reaching their full potential, and makes for a couple of really forgettable tracks. "Fangs!" has plenty of epic and glorious moments, but quite a few songs just feel unfinished and kinda disappointing.
Strengths and weaknesses aside, "Fangs!" is a strikingly strong and ambitious album, particularly considering that it came from the Christian music scene. Unfortunately, Conservative Baptists where not prepared for a Falling Up album without praise songs and references to Jesus scattered haphazardly across white-man rap-rock verses. The album did poorly and Falling Up was dropped from their label, and have been trying to expanded their sound on shoe-string budget ever since. But "Fangs!" stands as a strong album from a band that was really interested in expanding their horizons and shooting for the stars.
but such is life 
