EP: “But A Handful Of Puzzle Pieces” by Falling For Vanity

Three piece Weymouth band “Falling For Vanity” formed in April 2012, amongst the ever evolving music scene created by some great gigs put on by Hourglass promotions in such venues as Finns and the Weymouth Pavilion. Despite the band only being around for a few months their debut 5 track EP “But A Handful Of Puzzle Pieces” is already available and certainly not for the faint hearted.

When I usually get an EP to review I load it on to my ipod and play it through a few times in the car to get a feel of the music. This time my young children were in the car and I had to turn it off straight away due to the sheer amount of “F” words in the songs. Now I am no prude and think the odd expletive in a song does no harm, but with this many it does limit the band to their audience and particularly radio airplay, with the kids out of earshot I was intrigued to listen to more. The music is a real mash of all styles rolled into one to make quite an original sound, there is punk, grunge, goth, along with plenty of metal influences found all over the EP. The vocals produced by singer “Hex Fairydance” on the first two numbers are somewhere between Corey Taylor, Kurt Cobain and Bruce Dickenson with a bit of screamo thrown in for good measure. The music is fast, furious and full of masses of energy with lots of extreme metal guitar work that really packs a punch. The very dark and menacing “By The Throat” seems to by a somewhat twisted love affair, that grows around the lyrics:

“You talk to me in your sleep
You scream for me when I’m in to deep
Push me away when I get too close
But always love me By The Throat”

“Spotlight” brings in the welcome addition of some female vocals which compliments Hex’s vocals really well, possibly creating the best song on the EP, slowing things down a little, this fuses electric and acoustic guitars together changing pace in an instant.

The EP ends with “Lips Of Spite” another fasted pace number with some amazingly passionate vocals put down once again by “Hex”. For the first attempt as a band this is a great debut and really makes me want to go and seem them live, the songs would make for an energetic and varied live set which I am sure the band are more than capable of creating. Their enegry reminds me a litte of Bristol’s brilliant upcoming Emo/Goth group “Ashestoangels” http://www.ashestoangels.co.uk, I’m sure it would be great if “Falling For Vanity” hooked up with them and bands like them such as “William Control”, “Fearless Vampire Killers” and “Dead!” as it is a new ever growing scene really suiting music of this type. Whatever you do though don’t let your young children get hold of this as it could lead to some naughty words said in the playground.