If this had of been an EP, I;d have enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than I did. After all, there’s only so many times you can hear the same song recycled in a different way. I was quite impressed with the last The Fallout Theory effort because the songs reminded me a hell of a lot of The Movielife; full of spark and vigour and plenty of melodies. However, ‘So Happy You’re Not Here’ reminds me more of Taking Back Sunday – particularly in the dual vocal attack the band adopt, albeit something they do well. By changing tack slightly, the sound the band creates comes off as slightly borrowed and leaves you thinking you’ve heard it all before. TFT are not a bad band whatsoever – they’re actually pretty good – but 10 songs of the same material just doesn’t cut the mustard for me.
This is definitely the best Lockjaw release in recent months, but does suffer from a kind of overkill with a lack of variation. ‘Right Now It’s Our Time’ and ‘Drive Like Reason’ stand out for being excellent, but many of the others, while good, tend to blend into one another. I can imagine The Fallout Theory are excellent live, but for a debut album I would have liked to have seen a little more variation in their sound to show a more rounded side to their songwriting. It’s okay being catchy (see ‘Sleep Without Answers’), but not if it makes you sound like a billion other bands with black t-shirts, studded belts and band names like Hidden In Plain View (see ‘This Is Our Summer’). I hoped this would be better because the EP hinted at promise, but this doesn’t show enough variety to make me want to listen over and over again I’m afraid.
www.thefallouttheory.com
Lockjaw
Paul