…it falls apart

Album review

Jumping on the Radiohead bandwagon a couple years too late, For Stars' It Falls Apart cops so much of their sound and style it is almost ridiculous. The only thing that saves the record from being a complete heist are Carlos Forster's very American lyrics; you just can't see Thom Yorke ever using "baby" in a lyric unless he was talking about actual babies. Anyway, For Stars have the same epic, reverb-saturated guitars along with similar song structures, the same use of jittery atmospherics, and Carlos Forster's quivering falsetto. They have the same tendency to smother their melodies with uneasy atmospheres at times, though on "It Really Doesn't Matter"/"In the End" they let the chorus ring out like U2 would, like Radiohead circa The Bends. In fact, just call this the follow-up to The Bends that Radiohead never made and leave it at that. If you are a Radiohead fan, this may be just the kind of record you are looking for to fill the void between their releases. For anyone else, It Falls Apart is pretty much devoid of interest.
© Tim Sendra /TiVo