This is fairly common knowledge but once upon a time fairy tales were dark tales of death, fear, and consequences to your actions. Over the years movies and modern society has softened up the tales for fear that children are too sensitive to hear such things. Enter Jessy Ribordy and his band Falling up who seems to have decided to reinvent the fairy tale for a modern audience with a sci-fi twist.
Falling up started as a fairly straight forward Christian alternative rock band (think early Linkin Park) complete with Bible verses in their linear notes. The band slowly morphed to an almost progressive rock alternative band with a penchant for concept albums that honestly can be baffling from a story perspective. In 2015 they announces this self-titled album to be their final album as a band and as such their final statement as a creative unit. The album in question can be described with two words “cinematic” and “epic”. The music is a truly great slice of indie alternative rock and varies nicely between mysterious sounding piano like “Up in Houses”, intense guitars like on “Rangers”, and huge sounding drums that serve as the backbone to a lot of songs. Other sounds like strings that sound like they belong in the credits of a film can be heard in the outro of “The Green Rider” or the music box motif heard on several songs such as “Hydro” and “Ranger” give the album a lot of musical depth. As mentioned at the beginning of this review the band seems to be aiming for a very Grimm Fairy Tale vibe with this album and though I don’t totally understand the story being told this is my humble interpretation (or more accurately my Wild Mass Guessing), based on reading the lyrics and some suggestions found on the internet. Also keep in mind that the tracks don’t necessarily follow in chronological order but instead bounce around Christopher Nolan style. Many years ago a character killed many victims (Hydro and Up in Houses) but found redemption for their sins (The Woodworker). Years later as this character and his children are staying in a house possibly designed by the killer they are suddenly being invaded (Boone Flyer, Flora, The Green Rider) probably as a consequence for the Father’s actions years earlier. The characters struggle for their lives trying to survive the attacks of some sort of unidentified beings and humans (In The Woodshop, Rangers) before finally setting the wood surrounding their house on fire and escaping (Hydro, Flares). Throughout this story you get heroic moments and heart wrenching confessions of guilt. The story could be taken as very literal but could also have a spiritual metaphor component to it as well (self-sacrifice, redemption of sins, fighting again forces of evil). However you choose to view the story doesn’t seem to be as important to the band as the emotions the album is making you feel. It is worth also noting the closing lines to the album, “Let them know that you can float, turn around and rise up” alludes to the band’s name and the name of this album “falling up”. The original meaning of that name was an allusion to falling into the grace of Jesus and I think that’s a pretty nice note to leave on. Rather we’re running from the sins of our own past or a dark force we can always fall up into that grace. Suggested Tracks: Boone Flyer The Woodworker Rangers Flares
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