Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It was the maxim of honour, the unshakable code that respectable people lived by and in times of war, disaster or even the offerings of pleasure, it was the denial of self-interest that kept an ideal alive; the notion of Women And Children First, the chivalric tone of reverence to those that were thought defenceless and one of the only good things to come out of the Victorian hangover that has been in place despite the changing face of Britain since the end of World War Two.

For Manchester band The Falling, the two sided single that comes under the lofty banner of this true mark of respect is a carrying call with its own mark of sleeve design of contempt to those who believe arguably in something else, something more akin to the rotten and the disgraceful behaviour employed by the Westminster Asylum.

Both Burst and The City fill the room with an expectation that demands excellence and in which it revels in as the sound of one of the most exciting groups to come out of that particular area of England in a long, long while, comes bounding out of the speakers as if the tail is on fire and the drama has exploded causing mayhem, havoc and the slice of poetic beauty that any listener of music wishes for.

For John Done Jr., Brian Mitchell, Andy Keating and Jason Hanley, this marvellous follow up to the release of Just So You Know and The Library is more than within keeping of the tradition of the band, it also exudes a greater sense of the demands of the chase that are underway in a world lurching blindfolded into a world of extremes and ultimatums that are beyond the natural thought processes of the U.K.’s citizens.  

Singles are notoriously difficult to gage a band’s overall ethos upon, yet a couple of singles down the line, The Falling should be considered as a group of the assured and the righteous.

Ian D. Hall