Crossfade - Falling Away Review
Posted by Brandon Ratliff on 09.22.2006
Damn you sophomore curse, why must you always rear your ugly head?!
Crossfade - Falling Away
Release Date: August 29, 2006
Label: Columbia Records
Produced By: Randy Staub
First Single: Invincible
Recommended Downloads: Why, Washing The World Away, Invincible
Crossfade is:
Vocals/Guitar: Ed Sloan
Bass: Mitch James
Drums: James Branham
Tracklisting
1. Washing The World Away
2. Already Gone
3. Someday
4. Invincible
5. Falling Away
6. Everything's Wrong
7. Why
8. Breathing Slowly
9. Anchor
10. Drown You Out
11. Never Coming Home
Total Runtime: 39:47
Let's cut right to the chase here, rather than my usual long winded introduction. Crossfade burst onto the music scene back in 2004 with their self-titled debut album, seemingly going straight to the top of the radio rock heap with the single Cold, which stayed on the active rock charts for over a year. The album also had the follow-up singles Colors and So Far Away, but neither came anywhere near close to the popularity of Cold. Still, it was enough to send the album into the realm of platinum sales, so needless to say the band was very much expected to deliver with its follow-up, the first without former vocalist/DJ Tony Byroads, who left the band in 2005 to get married.
The album starts with out with the riff-heavy track Washing The World Away. Don't be fooled though; the meaty riff in the intro only lasts about seven seconds before turning into...a ballad-esque song? Okay, well, it's a decent enough track with a pretty catchy if forgettable chorus, but definitely not a good way to kick things off. If I've said it once, I've said it a million damn times: you always put the most upbeat song at the beginning to catch the listener's attention right off the bat. Two more tracks that you'll probably not remember after hearing them, then we get to Invincible, the first single off of the album. A catchy hook this song has, but that's about it. The music is extremely bland and little more than background noise, and lacks any real punch when it would have helped drastically. The vocals save the chorus as the song is catchy, albeit generic, both lyrically and in delivery. The perhaps one bright spot on the album (after, of course, another two clichéd ballads), is the one real hard rock song on the album, Why. The verse leaves something to be desired musically, but keeps up just enough to lead into the mellow pre-chorus (which is a bit too long) and the rocking chorus. This track also presents the best of what guitarist and vocalist Ed Sloan has to offer on both of his primary duties.
That, however, is the best you are going to get. And don't hope for any more of it either. What does this album do wrong? Well...what doesn't it would be the better question, but allow me to explain. Of the three singles from the debut album, So Far Away was probably the softest, and closest to a ballad. Be that as it may, it still had a sharp musical punch to it that could leave a bitter taste in your mouth if you were to take a second to absorb the meaning behind the lyrics. So that begs me to ask this question...
Why the hell is practically every damn song on Falling Away a ballad?
Seriously, I'm actually hoping someone who knows the band or "gets" them can explain this to me. What they did on their debut was make heavy, ear piercing rock music that, while the subject matters were cliché, were presented a little differently than most could. This time around, we have no heavy guitars save for a decent riff here and there, and a vocal performance that sounds like Justin Timberlake trying to emulate Elvis for the sake of being lyrically sarcastic and woo whatever girl he's going after at the same time. I actually went back and listened to the debut again to make sure I was even hearing the same band, and while it is hard to believe, I actually was. And I'm not even going to get into the fact that a lot of the songs either end way too abruptly (with Anchor, a song that had been played live for a LONG time and thusly has no excuse to not be perfectly fine-tuned, being the prime example of this), or have such stupidly organized song structures, you'd wonder if someone let the autistic monkeys loose on the Pro-Tools rig.
And what the hell is up with Sloan trying to emulate Chris Cornell from Audioslave on Never Coming Home? I'm all for a band pushing their boundaries and experimenting, but this song, and his vocals, are so out of place one can't help but to wonder if it was some sort of track they recorded as a joke and it somehow got included on the album by the aforementioned monkeys, who were apparently also in charge of putting together the tracklisting and defining the horrible pacing - or lack thereof, as the case is - of this album.
Usually when you think of a sophomore curse, you'd think of a band that had a solid debut that did well, and just not quite having the tracks that catch on as well at radio and failing commercially, even though they typically turn out to be better albums. This isn't the case here. This album will probably clean up at active rock radio and on the sales charts, but make no mistake, this is a massive step back from their debut album. Maybe the band was going for the lighter sound to sell more records though...or, at least I hope they were, because if they think this is musical progression, then for their sakes, I hope they bow out before album number three, because at this rate, the aforementioned Justin Timberlake will actually somehow be more rock than Crossfade. Oh, what this band could have been...
The 411: I really hope this is Crossfade and/or Columbia Records' idea of a joke, because this album seems like there was no effort put into it whatsoever. Every song save for Why is one sad excuse for a radio ballad after another. There is absolutely no musical intensity on this album anywhere, which is really sad considering how good, if unfocused, their debut album was. It'll probably do well on the charts, but don't buy this album expecting to hear an album full of heavy rock tunes like Crossfade SHOULD have put out, but rather an album full of...well, think of Papa Roach's Scars and then take ANY sort of musical balls out of that song...yeah, it's that bad. Thankfully there is one minor bright spot in Why (which has its own moments of sappiness even) and a couple of decent riffs, but that's it. Avoid this album, especially since there is a lot better stuff out there by modern rock bands like Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace, and Hinder.
