If it wasn’t for bands like Heck and Allusondrugs expanding highly idiosyncratic rock into its own flourishing scene, FALLS would probably be judged a lot more critically. Their melding of funk rhythms with jagged, Future Of The Left-style riffage isn’t exactly primed for daytime radio, but the underground buzz garnered by their EPs speaks for itself, especially their last and former best effort to date One Hundred Percent Strong.
So in a move that’ll surprise absolutely no one who’s been paying attention, Cream is yet another step up. This is easily FALLS’ best release to date, sharper and more refined with bigger songs, but with all the tics and weirdness that makes them stand out. The other crucial component for this sort of thing to work is impact, and FALLS have that in no short supply. The fact that Live Delicious is essentially a broadside towards, as bassist Ben Griffiths has claimed, “boring bands” is enough to prove that.
And on the whole, this impact is doled out pretty evenly across these four tracks, be it the groove-to-growl binary of opener Berries!, the Eagles Of Death Metal-style squawk of Daytime N U or Live Delicious‘s whirling, circular rage. Even if the lengthier grind of The Liberator doesn’t have the stickiness of the other three tracks (probably a poor choice of words for a song named after a sex toy), it still remains grounded in thick riffs that give it some real presence.
It’s impressive just how much of Cream FALLS manage to get right. It’s not perfect, but then again this is still very much a preview. Even so, Cream displays such a level of technical proficiency and just overall fascination that it’s hard not to think that FALLS are onto something great when they finally get around to releasing a full-length. They’re not quite there yet, but it’s in reaching distance.
7/10
For fans of: Pulled Apart By Horses, Future Of The Left, Faith No More
Words by Luke Nuttall
‘Cream’ by FALLS is out now on Naughty Strawberry.
