Rivals In The Fall

The Tale Of J.B. Douglas

Written by: TL on 25/08/2011 01:47:34

In the interest of keeping my momentum going, here's a quick review before I call it a day and pass out. Today's band is Rivals In The Fall, a six-piece from the town of 'Earth' if their elusive facebook is to be believed (their soundcloud calls it Budapest though). It seems all they really want us to know is that they like Transformers, airplanes and composers of movie music. Oh and that they're working on an epic concept album split up into a trilogy of EPs. The first one is out already, it's called "The Tale Of J.B. Douglas" and this is its review:

I guess a shortcut to explaining what Rivals In The Fall sound like, is to ask you to imagine old New Found Glory material and give it a slightly digital sound (a smidge of autotune here, a dash of robot voice and keyboards there). Rivals In The Fall claim they're something we haven't heard before, and while it's not true for me - because I've listened to Sullivan and Let's Talk Tactics - I bet it's going to be true for most of you guys (seeing as those are hardly big bands by any stretch of the imagination).

"The Tale Of J.B. Douglas" is told via seven songs of energetic, dramatic pop-punk, which tries to make up for a rather mediocre production by adding said digital touches and some spoken word passages that narrate the plot. As far as I've been able to make out, J.B. Douglas is some sort of pilot, who experiences some sort of falling out with a fellow pilot and voila, a bitter enmity is born, which the story then revolves around.

You will excuse me if I haven't figured out more particulars than that, but while I love that the band is aiming to do more than just write a handful of songs about their high school sweethearts, their aspirations towards becoming some sort of cinematic rock band still seem to be a work in progress. The style seems like small scale emo/pop/punk dating pre-2005, and while there are catchy bits and nice energetic passages here and there, none of the songs come together to produce such an epic feeling as the band is likely aiming for. In fact, it seems in places like the story-telling is getting in the way of the band's utilising their good parts fully. That's the downside I suppose, of trying your hand at an ambitious concept record already on your band's first release. Still though, RITF deserve at least some credit for being ambitious and for not falling flat on their faces.

6

Download: The Clocks, Doug The Head
For The Fans Of: Sullivan, Let's Talk Tactics, New Found Glory
Listen: facebook.com/pages/Rivals-in-the-Fall

Release Date May 2011
Self-Released

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