Review: Trust Fall "Glow In The Dark"
For the last four years, Olympian indie band Trust Fall have been working on the recording of their newest album, “Glow In The Dark”. Sure, the pandemic. It mucked up all of our creative projects, if not our lives. But drummer Deetz, playing the main role of producer for this collaborative project, attributes the slow finish of this album to their own mixture of perfectionism and procrastination. The band had already released an album, a tour tape and an EP already and the Trust Fall sound is evident from the beginning. They took the time to make this album to up their musical game, and to quarantine and isolate as needed. Damn pandemic. They needed to take their time for ALL the reasons. But the work and wait paid off. “Glow In The Dark” the best “alternative” album I’ve heard in a long, long time.
It is always tricky talking about genre. Ask any musician what kind of music they play and they’ll wheeze. “It’s not in a genre. It’s got a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but you can’t put it in a box.” Then you’ll hear this puzzling musical enigma and you wanna say: “my dude… you play in a metal band.”
I talked to Trust Fall and asked them about genre. I opened this review calling them an “indie band” and my own first sniff was they are an early 90’s alternative rock band. But in my conversation with them I said “We’re all punks here. Is this music punk? Is whatever The Punks creating punk? Is this review going to be punk?” They laughed and agreed, but they settled on the easier term of “indie” for the band. I’m sure it’s the easiest phrase you could tell someone not into the fun of categorizing micro genres. It does say loosely what Trust Fall sounds like. But you can’t put them in a box. It’s got a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
I like calling it “alternative” but that’s because I am a forty something hipster who stayed up watching 120 Minutes on Sunday at midnight in the 90’s. This is firmly in that camp. Listen to the forgotten song “Stars” by the equally forgotten band Hum or the criminally underrated band Belly, and then compare it to “Glow In The Dark”. You’ll hear it easily holding hands with them. They could have shared a bill.
I was surprised that the band was surprised when I compared them to The Pixies. If you wanted, you could put that down to the high voiced, double tracked vocals of Erica. It’s in the same territory as Kim Deal. Sure. Whatever. But it’s really more than that. Trust Fall has the quite-loud-quiet sound down pat. And when they go loud, you can hear Erica channeling not Kim Deal, but Frank Black. Finally mentioning a song from this review, listen to the amazing “Storm Inside” and you can hear the calmly stated verses with the singable howl of the chorus and all I hear is The Pixies. Certainly, to the band’s credit, this is not direct reference. But any punk who makes rock music that is not firmly punk music is standing on the shoulders of The Pixies and all they have wrought.
Trust Fall started as a project for the main songwriter Erica, who had already played in a slew of respectable if not outright great bands in Olympia. Margie Pepper, Aqua Aura, Tankini. Great arty punk stuff following a few different sounds. Trust Fall could have started as just a focusing of her song writing, but it has turned into a full collaboration with the band. The band agrees she is the undisputed “band leader”, but they said she starts the songs and they all finish them together. You can hear the band makes the song really work. Whatever emotion and lyrical core the songs have is most complimented by how the band responds in the music. Listening to their earlier work and comparing to “Glow In The Dark”, you can see how much the band dynamic shaped the sound. Erica’s song writing and voice remain strong and at the forefront, but the emotional weight comes from every single member of the band’s contribution. Any harmony sung was the voice of long timer collaborator, bassist and co-vocalist KC. To their credit, I could not tell when Erica’s voice was simply doubled and when KC was doing their best to sing with and compliment Erica’s voice. Comparing this record to their last, you can see the rhythm section has really gotten their relationship down. The drums have more flare, more fills when needed, more fun and energy. And the bass is still keeping time, but solidly and comfortably playing with the drums. Guitarist Eli adds flavors of late 90’s emo, most deliciously accented in the opening track for the lazy, laid back emo and dominating “Storm Inside” with the abrasive, aggressive emo. All the emos are here. The second guitar part differing in style really makes each song surprising and full. Most of the emotional hits come not just from the lyrics, but the interplay of the whole band. Those four years of working on these recordings were time well spent with the music behind these songs. Again, it feels like a band supporting the song rather than a band playing as a backing for a song.
All of “Glow In The Dark”’s lyrical content seems to be rooted in the modern, progressive mindset of what mental health awareness feels and sounds like. This is a band that has a therapist in their life. These are songs that want healthy, honest emotions that cause growth, but the songs admit conflict and difficulty in this journey. Maybe we are all punks, but what divides this from the music of youthful rebellion is that these songs are not pointing fingers, but looking inwards. These are song looking at unhealthy patterns that always float around and acknowledging emotional turmoil is attached to these patterns. “If I can be nice to you I can be nice to me too,” Erica sings on “Not Dead Yet” and you know that was a hard fought bit of personal wisdom that has not yet been perfectly practiced.
The titular song “Glow In The Dark” is interestingly written in the second person perspective. I asked Erica is she was actually talking to someone or if she was dissociatively talking to herself. She firmly said it was the former: she was telling herself things she needed to hear. I find that method of self-talk relatable, but I would wonder what it would feel like to say these things to in the first person. What would it feel like to sing “I am safe and I am whole”? Sometimes we need to put a little bit of space between us and our words. Saying “You got this” versus “I got this” feels very, very different even if we are saying them to the same person.
There is a wonderful melting into each other that happens during the first three songs. Upon first listen, I had taken it as one long, dynamic exciting song. Its a fun way to listen to the work. But the song order selection shows a band that knows what music works together. Rather than song and then song, one after another, there is a cohesion to the changes that feels natural and pleasing. It sounds like an actual band playing music. The build of each song is very intentional and emotionally makes sense. I mentioned The Pixies “quiet-loud-quiet” structure of a song and Trust Fall uses that to great effect not just within the songs, but for the whole feel of the album. There is an ebb and flow of energy through out the album before it hits it’s peak with the very exciting “Storm Inside”, but it takes you back down for the final song, “Nobody Knows”. That song has it’s own up and down, and ends with a title refraining over and over in a delicious vocal call and response before the music itself simply takes over and fades out. Having listened to this album on repeat a few times, I can tell you the last song feels perfectly natural bleeding back into the first song to start the emotional journey all over again.
It can be tempting to give an album a theme, a whole story arch. But most song writers don’t actually work that way. Having such intentions can be overly forced and contrived anyways. But any artist working long enough is eventually going to be painting self portraits, no matter what they intend. Even if the artist thinks she is drawing the world and leaving herself out of it, she is seeing it with her own eyes and only painting what she thinks is worthy of expression. The best of us do this without intention or plan. The personality of the artist comes through regardless. “Glow In The Dark” speaks directly and otherwise about the swings of emotions any attempt at self love, personal healing and the difficulty of all that entails. Whereas The Pixies and their imitators, both good and bad, make it loud AF when the snare roll announces the chorus because its exciting and rocks, Trust Fall’s dynamic is like your defenses against self attack breaking you down. They are the loudness of unresolved conflicts with ex-lovers taking over your mind again after you thought the dust had settled. They are pushing pain away by feeling the pain. The music feels like emotional points rather than the pressing of a stomp box. “Glow In The Dark” is an album informed by modern ideas of mental health growth that feels very natural and at home for the punks past their 20’s. It is inward looking, but looking towards coming out the other end better equipped for having taken the time to look so close at what emotions are pulling us around. Every song works independently, and a few are stunningly great tracks, but the whole album works best in combination. Rather than a collection of songs, this is an actual ALBUM album.