New Music Revue: Reversing Falls rock ragged, raw

Arts January 20, 2016

Reversing Falls
Reversing Falls 2
(Independent)
3.5/5

This Montreal-based noisy rock band storms out of the gates strong with “This Is Why,” the song taking an almost-surf-rock guitar line and filtering it through shoegaze production and a ragged garage-rock/indie-rock sound. It’s a stellar way to start off their second album, and it doesn’t stop there.

Throughout all of Reversing Falls 2’s smart 22-minute playing time (brevity packs a punch), the band is nothing but frantic energy. Tunes like the very catchy “Never Let You Go” and the noisily sublime album highlight “Whisper,” for example, never stray far from the noisy chaos the band established with the first tune, but also show some good songwriting smarts.

There’s even some fun ’80s-pop vibes hidden on this disc too, but for my money, come for the chaotic beauty, stay for the chaotic beauty.

Clearly, this band isn’t aiming to soar to the top of the charts with music that sounds like this, which is the sign of art done for the right reasons.