Published on Dec 14, 2004
First, the music: Drop The Fear is rock. It is also trip-hop,
and it sounds “shoegazer” in places. If you take some of
Radiohead’s
Kid A, mix it with Massive Attack’s
Mezzanine, add to it some
Disintegration by The Cure and
Songs Of Faith And Devotion by Depeche Mode, and finally
sprinkle it with a bit of
Jar Of Flies by Alice In Chains, with some Cocteau Twins of
any form thrown in, you still won’t get the recipe for Drop The
Fear’s sound; you just get an idea of how it could be. This is
because, the band has a feel of its own, and it is very difficult
to classify their music.
The album is poignant. It is not perpetually depressing, but it
is gloomy. It is one of the finest “gloom” records ever made; it is
inspiring. Each of the 12 numbers of this self-titled release has
its own shade of somberness — no two songs have identically same
tempers, even though the general aura of the album is pallid.
Drop The Fear is a threesome, and all the three of them do
vocals, drums, and keys — in addition to guitars and basses that
also feature prominently in the band’s sound. So the album has
omnipresent keyboard-noise, and a hodgepodge of drumbeats. As a
matter of fact, the song “Gordon” is a fully drum-instrumental,
with some “atmospheric” synth added.
The only female-member of Drop The Fear, Sarah, sings most of
the songs on the album. She has a laidback style of singing, much
like that of Dido and Moloko’s Roisin Murphy. But she is a much
better vocalist than either of them. Sarah’s vocals make all the
ruefulness of the album seem comforting and hopeful.
The main male accompaniment to Sarah’s vocals, Ryan, has
distressingly haunting vocals. On the heavily guitar-driven
“Muranau,” he has a rasping tone, very similar to the grunge-legend
Layne Staley. On the trippy “Long Way From Home” he sounds as
sensual and as spooky as Horace Andy. Ryan is as gifted of a singer
as Sarah is, but he won’t help all the downcast mood of the record
get any brighter.
There is a rather strange and surprising fact about the outfit:
it does not have a record label yet, and the album is being sold
independently through a website based out of Denver, which is also
where the band hails from. The sound, complexity, and the
exceptional musical maturity of the album make it impossible to
believe that this band doesn’t have a record company.
Moreover, the production of the album is flawless and almost
perfect, for its musical intricacy — and this is a self-produced
work. This record could fit as the work of the members of a
well-established band, on one of their creative trips to produce
something spectacularly imaginative — and it turns out to be the
zenith of their career, but for an indie band that is still
struggling to clinch a record deal, this album is too good to be
true: This is one of the greatest debut LPs ever made. Also, even
for a debut LP, this record is simply too classy.
Drop The Fear represents the fact that not all music that
hits the charts is good. Or, not all music that doesn’t hit the
charts is bad. It exemplifies the bitter irony of true talent, not
getting credit for what it is — this band should be one of the
hottest new acts of the year. This band is gifted, and it will be a
great loss to music, if this group’s genius fails to get recognized
sooner or later.
For more information on Drop The Fear, visit them at
www.dropthefear.com.