Rat Face Lewey - 'The Fall Of Man' Album Review

Tracklist:

1. Tell Your Friends About Me

2. Comfortable

3. The Pirate Song

4. Replaced

5. Fight My Noose

6. The Fall Of Man

7. This Turtle

8. Belong To Yourself

Rat Face Lewey is a new name on me, but they've been around a few years. 'The Fall Of Man' is an intriguing listen... the songs grow and twist subverting expectation, yet never running the risk of alienating the listener by keeping everything at an exceptional standard of performance, these guys can play. Within the first couple of songs, you do get the feeling of a comfortable listen (not for a second to suggest anything here is in any way uninteresting), you see the band's musical playground and it's a fun place to be, the aforementioned variety within the songs makes each track a joy, the whole collection becomes a valid experience for the listener by default, the band maintain a live feeling throughout, nothing here sounds like the band can't reproduce it in a live environment (occasional sound effects aside) so the assumption I came to is that the band have perhaps road-tested these songs, perhaps these are the cream of the crop, the band certainly don't shy away from anthemic choruses. Some interesting instrumental choices aside the trio seem to focus on the core instruments, drums, bass, guitar and vocals, their nine years working together certainly show here, the degree of tightness and interplay between the trio is exceptional. As is often the case the tracks the band have put to the beginning of the disc are the strongest expressions of their sound, however the remaining songs are equally strong, with no less powerful arrangements, the band give us eight great songs that represent a band whose intelligence and knack for catchy riffs and choruses go hand in hand, the songs are concise, there's little wasted time, the ideas are stacked up very cleverly, we get cohesive, smooth-transitions, interesting lyrical motifs and a frankly awesome sound on all the instruments and vocals, this is an album that keeps on giving throughout.