I’m not sure what kind of hot-housing conditions Canada keeps its resident bands under, but it works; such is the abundance of unique quality to be found there. Montreal alone can boast the likes of the Arcade Fire, The Besnard Lakes, The Dears and Wolf Parade (to name just a few), and now the dilatory mournful Trips and Falls.
Emerging from the wilderness in 2009 with their debut LP (He Was Such A Quiet Boy) this atavistic imbued outfit tentatively entice a collection of roaming, pining sonnets out of a revisionist past epoch. The distinctive stoic burr and languish delivery of the groups founder and guitarist vocalist Jacob Romero sounds quite unlike any other I’ve heard recently. And when joined by the soothing swoon of Ashleigh Delaye the whole sweeping meander through an unforgiving exspanse becomes even more beguiling.
Softly and deftly as she goes, there is a certain weariness underpinning the rustic pastoral mood; with a sad reflective tinge of morose. Lyrics often allude to a mysterious unease between the twp protaganist vocalists: almost eerie at times, there’s the split Gothic lament to a murder, Good People Are Always So Sure They’re Right, and the sullen woe -emotions wraped in metophoical characteristics – That’s What She Said (“There’s a monster at the top of the stairs/And she doesn’t want to leave/She won’t bother us as long as we don’t speak her name”). Musically, the steel peddle wail and brisk country-esque tones are often awoken from their stupour and ease with bursts of a more chaotic nature: the calm gentle verses of the ode to love, I’ll Do The Dishes, You Do The Laundrey, is interrupted with jarring despondent dives into grinding meancing indie. Straying from their general atmospheric template, Trips and Falls evoke a mixture of The Dears and, very early, R.E.M, and brush up against My Bloody Valentine when they occasionally dip into drone and fuzz.
An intriguing wonder through a panoptic and empirical suite of introspection and tales of ‘love that dare not speak its name’, People Have To Be Told sticks its head above the pulpit, standing out amongst the general twaddle and folk melee that threatens to eat itself whole.
Due: Out Now
[Rating:4]
