In Passing
Posted September 04, 2008
By IronJedi,
If you were to combine the creativity, talents and styles of labelmates Anberlin, Falling Up & Kutless you’d come pretty close to describing Tooth and Nail’s latest act, The Fold. These being three of my favorite modern rock bands, you can guess I was anticipating listening to this disc.
The first song seemed to confirm my anticipation. “Gravity” starts This Too Shall Pass with a catchy, guitar-filled anthem. If you sense a “but” coming though, you’re right. About four songs into the disc, the flow of the album begins to wander. While a certain amount of tension between music and lyrics can enhance the mood of a given song, there’s too much dissonance between music and message for my taste. This lack of a cohesive style detracts from the album’s strong songwriting.
Daniel Castady’s lyrics are layered with double-entendre. His use of clever phrasing creates a fine line- being vague enough to leave meaning open to the listener’s interpretation but overt enough to convey deeper, spiritual dimensions. The focus on letting go/sacrifice, change and longing keeps the album thematically centered on relationships- both horizontal and vertical ones.
The Fold has all the necessary elements that a successful band needs: passion, talent and creativity. The band needs to smooth out their musical style so that it creates a synthesis with the lyrical theme. I have a suspicion that with a different, more tightly focused producer this album would have been even stronger. Is This Too Shall Pass worth checking out? Yeah. But there’s room for this band to grow.
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