There For Tomorrow- A Little Faster Review
Posted by Alistair McGeorge on 06.25.2009
Despite being together for the best part of 6 years, There For Tomorrow haven’t quite managed to fully break into the mainstream yet. With new album A Little Faster, that could all change. Will their full-length debut on Hopeless Records be the push they need?
I’ll admit I hadn’t heard of There For Tomorrow before listening to A Little Faster, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. They’ve played the Warped Tour in 2006 and 2007, and will join the tour again this year. With their debut album Point of Origin, a self-titled E.P. and another E.P. called Pages, There For Tomorrow have collectively sold 200,000 CDs in the US. They’ve started to build a live reputation, and CD sales look positive, so can A Little Faster make the Orlando quartet the emo-punk stars of 2009?
There For Tomorrow- A Little Faster
1. The Remedy
2. A Little Faster
3. Wish You Away
4. Backbone
5. Deathbed
6. Just In Time
7. Stories
8. I Can’t Decide
9. Sore Winner
10. Burn The Night Away
11. The World Calling
The album starts in a positive way, with a great riff and powerful beats on opener 'The Remedy'. Even just a minute in, it’s clear that this could be a fun gig opener, or even a breakthrough single for the band. Already they’re showing their strengths- powerful riffs, a tight rhythm section and catchy melodies. The vocals sound similar to bands we’ve heard before, but they do it just as well.
The title track again carries on the theme of being a catchy pop-punk tune, similar to other emo/post-hardcore acts like Jimmy Eat World and All Time Low. Whilst they might seem unoriginal, one thing that’s apparent with 'Wish You Away' is that There For Tomorrow do it just as well, if not better, than most emo bands around at the moment.
It’s important to realize that if you’re not a fan of the emo genre or songs with lyrics about lost love and missed chances, A Little Faster might not be for you. Songs like 'Backbone' and 'Deathbed' aren’t bad by any means, with the latter including a very nice string arrangement that add to the atmosphere of the track. When Maike Maile comes in for the chorus with “I feel asleep on your deathbed “, it’s another moment that shows that this band deserve to be as big as their contempories.
'Just In Time' is the album’s first ballad, and whilst it’s definitely clichéd, it’s by no means a bad effort. This seems to be a pattern with the album- it’s all very good stuff, but it’s nothing really groundbreaking or new. That said, the acoustic section for the first half of 'Just In Time' is a nice moment, showing the band’s more melodic side away from the heavy riffs and steady beats.
'Stories' brings the tempo right back up for its opening section, before becoming another very nice track. The a capella line of “We sit back, we sit back/while we watch all of them react”, show Maile’s great vocals, with a very nice almost falsetto moment, before dropping into the catchy, bouncy choruses that A Little Faster is full of.
From here, we go into 'I Can’t Decide', another track with the first half being a very nice acoustic number. We go back into the heavier style for a while, finishing with a nice little string outro, leading into the heavy and fast 'Sore Winner', another solid pop-rock track on a decent album.
What follows is easily my favourite track on the album, and is a big departure from everything else on here. 'Burn The Night Away' is just a beautiful acoustic love song, with some great strumming and a singalong chorus that dares you not to join in. While the other ‘ballads’ on the album seemed slightly clichéd and slipped back into the typical emo styles towards the end, this stays with just vocals and acoustic guitars, and is better for it. It shows the band’s mind for melodies, but I honestly wouldn’t mind hearing this with all the instruments added back in. It could work either way, and is by far the best song on A Little Faster. Have a listen:
The album closes in a fitting way: 'The World Calling' is the kind of song There For Tomorrow do well- danceable, catchy, power-chord driven emo-pop-rock, and it’s a good choice to close the album. After the down-turn in mood after 'Burn The Night Away', this turns it right back up again. I think the album opener and closer were very good decisions, with this song’s drawn-out, faded ending providing a nice end to a solid album.
The 411: After listening to A Little Faster a few times, I can definitely recommend this to anyone who is already a fan of the genre. The entire album is catchy, and there’s no half-measures. Tracks like 'Wish You Away' and 'The World Calling' are all-out pop-rock, and the ballads play their part. I’d recommend it for Burn The Night Away alone. Whilst it's nothing we haven't heard before, it's a sign that There For Tomorrow are on their way to becoming stars.
