The Crashing Falcon
The Bitter Glamour of Heavenly Panorama
9.5
I like metalcore, so fucking shoot me. Don’t read this review if you don’t like metalcore plain and simple.
My search for quality metalcore amid a sea of big name and over emotional crap (mainly on Tribunal) has led me to find a few undiscovered gems; Through the Eyes of the Dead, The Showdown, Quantice Never Crashed, The Pax Cecilia, Circles Over Sidelights, The Auburn System, The Zimmerman Note, Foreknown and Quell. But this Huntsville, Alabama lot of bruisers has to be my best find yet. This debut EP of crushing grooves and streamlined melodies has to be the most succinct and proficient examples of the genre I've heard.
The usual suspects appear in spades here; dual European harmonies, robust breakdowns and with far more of a death metal lean, The Crashing Falcon take those overdone elements and pummel them into something powerful and energetic. The vocals are done almost exclusively in a super deep death metal bellow and the usual high metalcore screams are kept to a minimum.
Similarities to other hardcore inspired death metal/metalcore bands can be heard here as elements of Dying Fetus, The Red Chord, Nehemiah, With Dead Hands Rising, Dead To Fall, etc, burst from the seams of every bottom end riff, but The Crashing Falcon somehow make the sound their own with an often rock and roll take on the punishing sound. With the first track “Assemble the Flag” initially delivering choppy DEP stuttering that then takes on the tumbling prose of a rock slide, The Crashing Falcon’s approach certainly warrants name dropping, but their astute song writing certainly makes you forget all the bands they cull from. “The Reign of the United Snakes” is more fervently melodic and flowing before leaping into a lumbering squeak fest that echoes with classic death metal tones. “Magic can only be Taken Seriously When You're Wearing a Tuxedo” shows the band's knack of sudden tempo shifts and catchy rock and roll riffs as the EP’s longest song slithers and stutters through Misery Signals–ish harmonies and robust breakdowns. The hazy opening of “Disconnecting Constellations” is ruptured by a chaotic vortex then yet another teeth rattling breakdown. “Baptism at Boiling Point” gallops with a more urgent, traditional Gothenburg gait, but does so with presence rather than simple cloning.
Unfortunately, the untitled closing track falls into the metalcore trend of “lets make the last track all silence, then throw a joke song on the end!” (surely studio time and money can be spent on better things?). So I docked them points for that as well as a slightly flat drum sound and a below average drummer. Still, even with those minor flaws, this EP fucking rocks, shreds and pummels.
