Fallout, a five-piece band, played the 4th slot on the "Summer Sound Off" Wednesday night.

 

   They came out with some pretty good intensity, bouncing around the stage, and more then once almost bumping into one another. (note to the guys in Fallout : being intense and grooving on stage is great, but you have to be aware of your surroundings). While their intensity during the first song was good, it quickly fell off after that, except for the bass player. He kept it going throughout the set, using a decent mix of finger picking andFlea-like thumb slapping.

 

   Getting back to the intensity thing, both guitar players lacked it after the first song, staying in thier own little 2x2 foot area, moving very seldom. Now, that may be their "thing", the way they are, but up on stage musicians are entertainers, and just standing there does not entertain. The singer paced back-and-forth, seemingly uninspired,but at least he did move around.

 

   My first thought was that his singing wasbland and lacked range, but he mentioned something about being sick in the days leading up to the show, so I'll cut him some slack.

   

   The drummer, however, was top-notch. Not  very flashy, but he kept great time (what a drummer is supposed to do), using a nice blend of fills and rolls at the right times, being careful not to over-do it. He had a very John Bonham-like style, not suprising since he was sportin' a Led Zeppelin shirt.

   Fallout could use some backing vocals, seeing as most of thier songs have a melodic chorus. Geez, with five guys in the band, at least one of them should be able to sing a little back-up, no?

 

Here are some observations from Fallout's set:

 

   "I'm Awake" has a nice riff, but the song kind of drifted into a repetitive chord progression that was muddied by both guitars playing the same thing. This song could especially use some back-up vocals to bring out the chorus a bit.

   "Here But Gone" is a little slower, not quite a ballad, but I could not remember much else about the song, which is not a good sign. Good songs get caught in the public's memory, but the rest of "Here But Gone" was there, but gone.

   "Let It Be" is a good, modern sounding song that could be heard on 106.5. The  bass player had good use of the fretboard during this one, playing different octaves to change it up throughout the song.

   "Stop The Madness" has a very cool opening riff, but it was not used for the remainder of the song, leaving me slightly bummed 'cause I liked it so much. It was by far Fallout's standout riff of the set, and (in my humble opinion) shoud have been worked into the song more. Aside of the opening riff, the rest of the song sounded like a lot of thier other songs.

 

Musically,Fallout lies somewhere between heavy metal and hardcore, without theCookie Monster vocals. As a whole, they were okay, opting to follow the formula that most of the modern, nu-metal band are doing today. Hard, crunching power chords void of any solo's (would it kill someone to learn some scales?????), with melodic vocals . All that being said,Fallout unfortunatly gets lumped in with the rest of todays bands, with not much to set them apart. Maybe with some solo's, backing vocals, and less repetition, they'll do just that...