There were a few
surprises in reviewing Fades Away. First, there were some very familiar faces.
A quick check revealed that two of the members are also in Summertime Dropouts.
This made me feel a little more invested, and I also suspect that this is how I
got the follow. The Summertime Dropouts review was in April, and at any given
time I have about a six-month supply of bands, so I'm thinking that's when
Fades Away followed me, and now it is their turn.
The next thing that
hit came in the lyrics of "Not Ready To Run":
When the levee
breaks from the pressure,
All the waves come crashing down on top of everything you know.
The medication isn't helping,
How can I jump from this cliff not aware of what's lying below?
All the waves come crashing down on top of everything you know.
The medication isn't helping,
How can I jump from this cliff not aware of what's lying below?
It struck me
because of the Graeme Thomson book, I Shot a Man in Reno. Thomson spent
a lot of time on how Hurricane Katrina in 2005 did not inspire anything
equivalent to the Mississippi Flood of 1927, which inspired a song actually
called "When the Levee Breaks."
At the time I did
think that maybe one of his problems with not finding much helpful said about
mortality was that he was listening to the wrong music, but hearing that
specific phrase caught my ear, and then the lack of remedy, fear, and
uncertainty of the next two lines related to many of the people that I worry
about now.
Fades Away is a
Christian band. I recently wrote (and it was in relation to the Thomson book)
about how I tend not to care for religious music, despite being religious, and
that maybe it was the overly assured tone that threw me off.
That is not a
problem here. The other pleasant surprise was this line on their Noisetrade
page:
"The album
cover art and song “Perceptions” illustrate the concept that Christians open
the door to darkness and become like Pharisees when they piously represent
themselves as “better than” others. The ominous figure in the cover photo
grasps his bible as he dwells in self-righteous condemnation of others."
People really don't
remember the Pharisees enough, especially lately. The music of Fades Away does
have faith, but it still represents pain and struggle and searching, and I do
respond to it emotionally. There should always be this potential there, for
spiritual depth to lead to meaningful songs, but it is often unrealized, which
is a shame.
In that way, Fades
Away provides a feeling similar to how I feel about Linkin Park. Their sounds aren't
particularly similar - sound-wise Fades Away reminds me more of various
core-related bands - but the yearning, and the empathy that I feel is similar.
I am sorry that I
can't be more specific on how they fit in genre-wise. I haven't figured out how
all of the various words that can be combined with "core" fit
together yet. The band uses "rock" and "hard rock", and I
think that's reasonable.
"Choir Of
Failure" may be the showpiece of the Perceptions album. It has a
somewhat epic feel, with symphonic touches and building drama. The band is
guitar-driven, and they are strong at that, but they will use other instruments
to get the right effect for a song. Listen to the delicate into of
"Home" for an example of that. "Remnant" goes some pretty
interesting places too.
Collectively there
are several years of musical experience here, and it shows. Performances are
top-notch.
Noisetrade provides
links to iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, and eMusic for purchasing. That's pretty
good.
I do need to make
one criticism. On the Twitter profile, the main link they provide takes you
straight to MySpace. They should definitely change that to the Facebook link,
or get a Tumblr, or do something; anything other than MySpace. I feel strongly
about that.
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