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Drop the
Fear: Self-Titled
The golden glory of ambience: walls of gauze on the stone foundation of eighties experimentation. Electronica has always been the realm of atmosphere, of new age mood with a no wave payoff. Even those less committed to musical archaeology know that electronica is for a time, a space, a feeling; whether Drop the Fear intended to build an electronica album or not, their first full length release is exactly the kind of album a listener reserves for evenings alone or late night drives home. Drop the Fears self-titled debut is a decent, if unremarkable addition to the ambient vernacular. Therein lies the dilemma. The album feels like twilight exploration, starting with Nevermind, where lead singer Sarahs voice is on best display. (All three members of the band share vocal and instrument duties, but her voice is most prevalent.) Nevermind is trimmed and polished for a trance remix, and the structure of the song would bear it well. By the end of track one, the sun has set. The rest of Drop the Fear is a dark house. Think cobweb minimalism, damp basements and exposed piping, faded curtains and stairs that go nowhere. Murnau flirts with Depeche Mode, but soon abandons such an orchestral rock vein for the buried vocal sampling of Natural Law and Standing Still. Alternately, Drop the Fear can veer off into nearly instrumental territory, where at least five layers of sound are the focus, such as hot upstairs and lonely as they come. Despite the slight variations I can declare as an inspector, Drop the Fear isnt challenging any building codes. Sadly, like most ambient albums, the tracks on Drop the Fear are difficult to distinguish from one another, sounding almost like a seven-inch single with eleven remixes. The worst example of this might be Gordon, in which its possible to skip twenty seconds of the song repeatedly and hear no change in rhythm or tone. Though each song is pleasant and different in its own way, they are just not that different. There is no ascension, no aspiration, and there are no surprises. How could there be, when ambient has been bulldozed and rebuilt so many times? It is the fall of the house of ambient electronica. There is very little room for brash new life in a musical style so rooted in its accepted format. My praise extends to Drop the Fear for crafting an album so clearly defined, with a professional feel from packaging to mixing but the album itself is an architectural folly.
This album can be purchased at the Drop the Fear Official Website About LOTD Contact/Staff Advertise Home All content © LEFT OFF THE DIAL 2001-2005. All rights reserved. |
