THE FALLOUT TRUST In Case Of Flood
EMI (2006)
The Fallout Trust are a London-based six-piece who seem to live together in a kind of Levellers-like collective and my first thought when I heard the first few bars of this, the band's debut album, was 'oh, here we go, another bunch of arty-farties who wouldn't know a good tune if it punched them in the face'.
How wrong I was. This is a very good album in fact, and certainly doesn't sound like their first. Like I said, once the first intro is out of the way, the opening track, When We Are Gone, really gets going with Edge-like guitar lines and a great chorus.
The U2 influence comes up again on track three, Before The Light Goes, with excellent spacey guitar - although it lets itself down a bit with a repetitive chant-like finale.
The band cite The Associates as a major influence, and you can hear that, but there's all sorts of stuff in here - Radiohead, U2 (as mentioned), Turin Brakes, Placebo and even a little Kaiser Chiefs jostle for position, but the band are far from derivative, having a sound distinctly their own.
Of the eleven tracks on offer here you would be hard pressed to find a real duffer, although 'Washout' is rather aptly named and I wasn't too keen on 'Them Or It', but hey, even the best albums have the odd track you could take or leave.
The standout, for my money, is 'No Beacon' which is excellent using any criteria - good start, a nice guitar figure, soaring chorus, superb harmonies, what more do you want?
Overall, this is a tremendous debut effort and if the band can continue along this essentially indie-rock road and not get their heads turned by leftfield arty-farty types (you know what I mean!) - the future could be very bright indeed.
****
Review by Alan Jones
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