Upcoming rockers Fall Of Every Sparrow have released their debut EP Ophir to give the world a taste of what’s to come. Fall of Every Sparrow bring an eclectic mix of genres into their mix such as shoegaze, metal and post-rock. While this may sound like a potential recipe for disaster through joining such diverse genres together, they manage to blend all of these elements as well as adding a progressive edge to create a unique sound that intrigues from the get go. Because of this, their debut EP is a tasty little morsel of what the band can do and a promising indication of what they may put out in the future.
Opening track ‘Sewn To The Sail & Unknown’ shows off the bands technicality. The song is a really unique experimentation as it features dual lead guitars that show off some nice virtuoso style playing. This is all held together with pounding melodic bass and really tight drum work which lets the lead guitar weave in and out nicely, complimenting the bass very well. Second track ‘The Writing On The Wall’ shows the band’s technical ability even more as it opens to some tapped guitar work backed by some heavy overdriven guitar that sets the tone for the chorus which has a really nice bouncy riff which is reminiscent of Deftones. The chorus also has screamed gang vocals that really lends some “oompf” to the clean melodic singing. This is also the first track that has some shoegaze elements built in to it which runs throughout the song creating an ethereal atmosphere during and this continues throughout most of the EP. ‘Ningyo’ is a good example of the band putting virtuoso playing on the back-burner and just focusing on writing a simple catchy song using vocal hooks intermixed with clean guitar riffs and bouncy bass lines all drenched in reverb. This is great because it shows the dynamic range of songs that the band can create. The band go even further by adding some acoustic guitars in fourth track ‘The Four Of Oxblood’ and here they experiment with some interesting stop/start time signatures.
Despite all the good things that Fall Of Every Sparrow have going for them they do stray into one of the pitfalls that comes with creating progressive songs. Final track ‘The First Rook To Flee As The Thunder Roles In’ is the longest song on the EP coming in at nearly six minutes; it’s perhaps a minute too long as ideas get repeated too often which makes the track a little stale. Regardless, the great thing about Fall of Every Sparrow is that they show off their technical abilities on this EP but never sacrifice catchiness or forgoing memorable riffs as is all too common in bands that like to show off. This is an EP for those that like their rock progressive and full of surprises and even if you’re not much of a fan of this style it would be a shame to miss out on this very unique band.
