Source: Album Artwork
In April The Fall Of Troy, math-rock/post-hardcore superheroes, released their 5th album OK. It was put up for “free” via a nominal donation on their website. Then a few days later they released OK#2. Rather than a second part of the album, with some tracks that didn’t make the original cut, it was a different version of the same songs, with different mixes. Their reasoning behind it was that everyone will hear the album differently, so they should record it in different ways as well. First thing’s first – hats off to The Fall Of Troy for taking the time and money to re-record an album in order to make an artistic point and to put their message across, and to then allow fans to pay as much as they like for it so that the ones who want to hear it can do so for free, and the ones who want to support them can give as much as they like to do so.
So what is the album actually like? Well imagine taking elements of old-school Alexisonfire, Coheed & Cambria and Funeral For A Friend and putting them in a young band from Washington and you’re getting in the right ballpark. Songs like ‘401k’, ‘A Single Word’ and ‘Auto Repeater’ could hold their own in a live set against anything that The Fall Of Troy have ever done and if you enjoy any of the bands that we just mentioned do yourself a favour and grab this album.
Which of the two is better? It’s hard to say really, and in the end will come down entirely to personal preference. The first mix, sounding much cleaner, vastly complements more the twiddly, tippy-tappy math-rock guitar lines that The Fall Of Troy use so adeptly, and in 2016 a cleaner production makes the album sound a lot more current. However the more raw mix definitely boots the heartfelt nature of the songwriting, and when The Fall Of Troy want to really get their mosh on and break it down to some headspinning post-hardcore riffage the dirtier mix makes it sound that little bit more aggressive and adds that little bit more bite you want in the heavy sections.
Either way, you cannot lose. OK will fall under a lot of people’s radar, but it really is a fantastic album, written an executed in a way that makes the production, however it was undertaken, a second thought compared to the excellence of the songs themselves.
