Time. I like having time, time is nice. In the last few days I’ve suddenly found myself buried not only in great new albums but also a number of album review requests, and it’s proving tricky. I normally prefer having only a few albums on the go at once and listened through thoroughly before I consider reviewing or simply rating and moving on; A Long Way To Fall got a heck of a lot of playtime (not that it shows in the review, bleh) because I felt like I needed time to pass judgement, but I didnt have so many albums weighing me down at the time.

It sounds like I’m complaining but I’m not, I like staying busy, but it can prove creatively tiresome sometimes when you want a quick turnaround to get back to your normal rotation with albums you want to review or make space/time of other requests. So I suppose this is something of a roundabout apology in case people find this review to be somewhat lacking in enthusiasm.

Due out on March 6th, Falling is, as far as I can discern, the second release of this band and quite a petite one at that; clocking in at only 22 minutes it’s a nicely bitesized affair and compresses very well the big and bold sounds of the genres these guys are rooted in; Experimental and Instrumental is how they advertised themselves to me, but calling this EP Post-Rock wouldnt be stretching the truth all too far, and in many ways it impresses me that they have managed to compress what are normally rather elaborate and bloated affairs within the genre into much more manageable tracks.

I like how I get a distinct vibe from each track through their titles first and then the music; opener “Sunshine Then Nightmares” epitomises its namesake well with well crafted and highly deliberate percussion (that would sound very much at home on a Post Rock album) ordering and structuring the intentionally chaotic “nightmarish” strings above; admittedly the sound is perhaps more melancholy than it is frightening but you get the idea. “Run Away” perhaps lives up to expectations better with growling and droning guitars creating an aggressive mood, rounded off with anxious and minor key vibraphone spinnings and attacked, staccato strings to really get you into its intensity.

“Smoke” is a great interlude to break the EP up; sitting right in the middle of the five tracks it has a very much more introverted and slower sound, stripping away many of the extraneous textures right back to the violin and the drums. I’m a sucker for this kind of thing; keep me on my toes with some nice minimal interludes and you’ve got me sold. It’s a far more delicate and in my opinion more emotional sound than on the other tracks, but maybe that’s my ludicrous ambient/drone bias kicking in and over-extrapolating again. The title track chases it up with some vaguely Folk reminiscent string work, which are very much at the fore again. The initial minute or so is slow and uncomfortable, the calm before the storm, that moment of zero gravity at the peak of a jump, but then the (I want to say piano, apologies) lurches in and pushes us down. It’s perhaps not quite as forceful or as driven as I would like/expected but ok nonetheless. Closer “The Lotus” keeps and builds upon the momentum of the previous track to round the album off and it’s probably the most Post-Rock dominated track of the album; it’s not a sound I can easily describe but there is something in the manner of the builds, the flow of the strings, the predictable drum beats that identify it. And just like that it’s all over.

Overall, a strong EP in my opinion. It’s actually got a great balance of track length vs. content and I am quite impressed at their ability to sardine the amount they did into the time given how meandering so many albums/EPs of this type have the tendency to be. Definitely worth checking out if you’re remotely interested in the described genres/sounds; it’s not available yet on any medium but you can preorder here and Like them and all that good stuff on The Facebook if you want to stay updated.