After The Fall – Fort Orange

Sometimes its the oddest thing that grabs your attention. For After The Fall‘s new CD, Fort Orange, is was one lyric from the second track – Thomas Philbrick – that stopped me in my tracks. The line was simple, nothing extravagant but grabbed my attention. It said, Do you remember that Millencolin record? It’s an odd, seemingly random lyric but one that instantly jumped out from the song and at that moment, I reached for the lyrics sheet and immediately fell in love with Fort Orange.

There are two distinctively different elements of Fort Orange which make it so completely enjoyable and it’s the way they work together that makes the record unforgettable.

The first and most obvious of the two is simply the music. Fast, pounding and unrelenting, After The Fall is a furious mass of melodic hardcore played at break neck speed from start to finish. My initial comparison was Lifetime as vocalist Mike Moak displays a clear Ari Katz influence in his vocal style but there’s others in there. Strike Anywhere and Propaghandi are easy comparisons with A Wilhelm Scream coming close behind. The minute-long pro-choice anthem It’s Her Choice rattles with intense hardcore like In The Face of War or, slightly, Black Flag.

The music brings you back to the times of sweaty clubs and skate parks and comes as a breath of fresh air in a sometimes stagnant scene. However, the real selling poking is the lyrics that Moak yells overtop of the thundering drums and incendiary guitar riffs.The lyrics are straight-forward, not laced with metaphors or hidden meanings, but instead impossible to misinterpret. The lyrics are sincere and powerful, telling songs of police shootings (Fort Orange), suicide (Thomas Philbrick) and love (Armpit) without any faults. Being instantly relatable, check out Routine which sees Moak attempting to break free from a nine-to-five job- something that I struggle wish and hope for everyday – the record becomes that must be personal for the listener.

They do take more a more political stance on many of the tracks, be it taking the left-wing punk ideologies of pro-choice in It’s Her Choice, rallying against racial stereotypes in Not Today, or complaining about the judicial system in Escape, but the other half are more personal. Reliving tales of drug abuse (Bummer) and demonizing rape (Poor Excuse) are good but the real gems are when they dissect the underground punk scene in Macho Bullshit and 1994; songs who’s lyrics will make any punk fan smile in agreement with.

The combination of intelligent, passionate and sincere lyrics with energizing, angst-filled melodic hardcore music makes After The Fall a band to keep an eye on in the future and Fort Orange a record to check out.