This is my first exposure to Molia Falls, as it may be for some others as well, and I am not sure what to expect at all from the CD that sits here. The packaging tells me little or rather, gives no impression of the type of music that may be hiding on this EP and that gives me pause. As I press play, I find myself thinking, "What am I getting myself into here?"
"Suburbia" starts off a bit promising, albeit a bit repetitive as it seems to take the band a while to get anywhere with the initial two to three minutes of fairly frantic drumming accompanied by some picking guitars that alternate between swells of loudness and swells of softness without really changing an awful lot in the way of tempo (slight variations are discernable). By the time the four minute mark rolls around, I am asking myself where this is going; it is not abrasive as the music is rather pleasant, and I find as time rolls out that the song is just that, a pretty sounding instrumental. As "Allay Avril" begins, I hear similar pretty sounding guitars (with dashes of Minus the Bear sounds), but I am really perplexed; this song is also fairly poppy and is screaming for some vocals that never show themselves. "Godalming" kind of reminds me of Mineral (a bit); I realize that this band must be an instrumental group by the minute mark of the track. The running motif of the band is some nice, clean sounding guitars with spats of frantic drumming to change the mood of the music; the drummer actually controls (at least for me) the emotional timbre of the music, which is neat.
By the fourth song on the CD, "Exterior Estate" I am actually rather enjoying some of the noises that Molia Falls is tossing at listeners like the sampled child's voice and the, what I think is a keyboard sound like "tubular bells", it has a very "background music" feel to it. The tempo on "A Francis Slipway" takes it down a notch, or it may just feel that way as a gut reaction; the guitars are the same as the other three guitar oriented songs, nice and clean sounding with lots of picking instead of strumming while the drums continue to influence the mood of the track.
The complete lack of vocals on A Support Entry Title makes this easy to toss on while you are writing or working; the fact that most of these songs are on the shorter side is a bit confusing as the CD is actually kind of short for an instrumental record. There are two issues that I take with this record. One, it is real short for an instrumental record; the songs just don't have enough time to really sink in at all. Two, these songs are screaming for vocals; on more than one occasion I find myself waiting for Jake Snider of Minus the Bear to start singing. I am actually surprised at how chill this EP is and find myself enjoying it much more the second, third, and fourth time that I listen to it. It is deceivingly poppy.
