THE FALLOUT TRUST are a fine enigma. Your reviewer has scant information other than they appear to be called Joe Winter and Guy Connelly and this curiously-housed EP is apparently their second.
We were entirely ignorant of the first, which is a shame as "EP2" delivers on the alienated promise of the sleeve: a stark, nocturnal scene featuring two low-rent geezers in a room with bare bulbs and faint echoes of Tubeway Army's "Replicas." Opening tune "One Generation Wall" is poppy enough, with a steady beat, growling bass, skinny Talking Heads-y guitar and buzzy, analogue synths a la Fad Gadget seeping out of the walls. The harmonies are effective and the chorus appears to be "But I'm not an indentation on the next page of the fallen book". Not hummable, you'd think? Well, you'd be wrong.
The three remaining tracks continue to impress. "We Will Wake Up" is the most urgent thing here: opening with skinny guitars The Au Pairs would have happily hijacked and imbued with energetic, slightly desperate Police-style harmonies. Latterly, a violin skirts around and embraces the melody regally. Very good.
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"The Watchman" once more echoes the early '80s, but again the violin's there and there's some effective, wonked-out guitar to thicken the plot. Arguably the best moment is the closing "TVM", however: a slow, desolate piano ballad with more than a few Radiohead/ Mark Hollis undertones and the harmonic (non)sense of a less kooked Flaming Lips. It's dreamy, narcotic and compelling and even when the rhythm section come in to clench it tightly round the neck the feeling remains.
Implausibly, The Fallout Trust recently supported Electric Six on tour, which in itself seems mind-boggling. Then again, in their strangely familiar, but wholly awkward to categorise world anything's possible, it would appear.
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