Mixing new styles with old and a piledriving amount of bass come UK alt-metallers Fallen to Flux. Their debut album Transitions is ruffling a few feathers (and destroying a few amps, I bet) en route to its release date of August 5th.
Their PR told me that I really needed to listen to the album as it was something special and believe me – he was right. After the opening brief intro track, the album just slams itself home with “Transitions I” which is at once, poundingly heavy and as catchy as any pop song.
Now, I’ve listened to this album using a decent sound setup with a load of bass, and on cheap headphones on my mobile. It’s a different experience on both. On the former, you do need to tweak the bass down a bit otherwise things get a tad mushy. On the latter, it’s a little too trebly. Transitions is an album that deserved to be listened to optimally. But I digress.
The first genuinely brilliant track on the album is “Sane”. If the introduction doesn’t have you at the very least nodding your head in time to the beat then I hope your will was up to date because you’re dead. Fallen To Flux manage to create a massive sound, with many layers and a love of bass drops. Despite all the chugs and rumbles, every single song has some element of melody that impregnates each beat. Clean vocals and a great line in simple, catchy guitar riffs make every song more hooked than a square mile of Velcro(tm) fabric hook and loop fasteners.
“Drifting” and “Razor’s Edge” are the closest that the band come to ballads and it’s interesting to hear their crushing bass-led sound being tempered by the gentler tones on these tracks. The chorus of “Drifting” is almost ethereal courtesy of a gorgeous guitar rhythm underlying the vocals.
You stadium-pleaser is “World of Ashes”, a huge number that builds quite quickly and had an amazing chorus and the kind of bridge that just begs to bear witness to thousands of pumping fists. “Colder” isn’t far behind in of sing-along-ability courtesy of some soaring vocals.
The album ends with “Transitions II” which only signifies the fact that you should have put the whole thing on repeat play because you will want to listen to it again.
Fallen To Flux are a hard band to pigeonhole. They have that massive twangy bass sound of so many post-metal bands, but clean vocals and a knack of writing earworms that a pop/punk group would be proud of. Regardless, Transitions is indeed a hell of an album and well worth waiting a few more weeks for.
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