Labels: Revelation
Review by: Kunal Nandi
After half a decade of slowly but surely releasing a slew of great EPs and mini-albums, I thought Fell To Low had gone and tricked me once again with another short-form release, but firing up the stereo and checking those running times reveals that FTL have gone way, way further out on a limb than other bands of their ilk have done. While the first three tracks blaze by in an expected 12 minutes, the last three take 35! Something unusual is going on here. “Urizen” was the hook that got me all hot and bothered for this LP’s release, ticking as it does the shouty DC-styled post-hardcore box in an Embrace or Rites Of Spring style together with the twisting, turning experimentalism of an Unwound, Sonic Youth or Lungfish, all while rocking as hard as possible. And that’s pretty much how it goes on the rest of it too, but on those longer numbers FTL enter a hypnotic realm of repetition that is insistent and urgent. In terms of shoutier numbers, “Low In The Dust” was easily one of 2015’s best.