Artist: Falling Colossus
Album: Funeral Mixtape
Label: Independent
Release Date: 07/09/2021
Country: United States
Chattanooga, Tennessee based three piece Falling Colossus are here to present their latest offering Funeral Mixtape. The album was independently released this week.
The band play an incredibly varied experimental/progressive blend of synth laden, instrumental doom, post metal/rock, psych, drone, ambient, noise and electronic music. To thank for this, we have Russ Johnson (guitar and synth), Nick Jordan (bass) and Bennett Williams (drums).
The overall sound of the band and by extension the album is very hard to pin down or pigeonhole. The release takes the listener to multiple varied realms, some of which have very little in common with each other. I suppose this could be viewed as either a strength or a weakness. Some may see this as boundary pushing, possessing the ability to write varied music that breaks down the barriers of genre. Others may choose to view the album as disjointed, unfocused, and lacking cohesion. My view sits somewhere between the two. I view the album is engagingly varied but as being a bit of a scattershot.
On a musicianship level, the band show that they are clearly proficiently skilled. Each individual element on the album is well played and their parts are well written. Guitars wise you’ll find some fantastic riffs on the release, particularly on track 7 Harrowing of Hell and track 1 Sweet Communion/Nicklin Drone and track 3 Three Legged Dog (which almost heads in a psych rock direction). Synth wise there is a varied offering throughout the release but tracks such as The Straw That Ate The Mule and UVB76 really stand out in that realm (with the latter almost entering dungeon synth territory). Track 8 is also a perfect fusion of relaxed instrumentals and heavy synth use.
The bass work on the album is solid throughout the album and really works well in tandem with the guitar and synth. Drum wise we get a truly solid performance that is equally as varied as the guitar work, with track 3 also being a real showcase of the artists talent.
If I had to pick an overall favourite track on the album, I would definitely want it to be Celestial Rorschach. The track features some truly fantastic and highly technical experimental elements. From about the 2-minute mark through to about 3:30 things get pretty weird and I honestly love it. However, the last two minutes of the song (which are drone/noise with some ambient elements) feel a little disjointed from the body and could easily have been separated out into a second track. Had this been the case it would be my favourite song on the album. In light of this I will have to go with my close second favourite Three Legged Dog, the instrumental work on this track is fantastic and I enjoyed the psych based direction that the song leaned in. The drum work really shines on this one and the variety in the guitar is truly impressive.
Overall, I really enjoyed the musical journey that Falling Colossus took me on with this release. I see this is a solid starting point for their career. As I mentioned earlier The album is impressively varied, which is in many ways a good thing, however I would like to see the band focus things in a little more on their future releases and maybe refine their sound a little. On the whole though I see the having a bright future head of them. The good news is that there should be something for everyone on this album, so dig in!
Listen to the album:
