Donoma - Falling Forward (2017)

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Written by Joshua Stryde, posted by blog admin

Independent rock bands that flip the bird to genre constraints can either come off as pretentious, art house kids who think they’re smarter than the rest but really aren’t or in rare circumstances you can get a ruthless, white-blooded outfit like Murder City Devils, Big Business or even the legendary Melvins.  It all depends on what you channel, how you channel it and who you channel it from.  Donoma (from Wisconsin) is one of those bands that transcends the hipster indie mindset and cashes out their tokens in the slot machine of real rock n’ roll on Falling Forward; the band’s second full-length.  To try and describe every nuance of this recording will literally drive a reviewer mad.  I can’t do it, you can’t do it and neither can Rolling Stone’s most crack, deadly accurate auteur.  You’re destined for a fall. 

What I can say is that this record positively and unabashedly rocks.  It rocks hard and often.  When it’s not rocking full-on, then it’s trying to get into your head and mess with your thought processes with progressive 70s textures soaked in drama and theatrics.  Tracks like “He Loves Me Not” and “Deep in the Woods” with their extensive use of keyboards, piano, traditional rock instrumentation, stream of consciousness vocals and layered drum/bass/guitar psychedelia are truly songs in the grand tradition of the prog-rock greats but updated into the modern era.  The sheer all over the place nature of the album reminds me of listening The Strawbs or Jethro Tull (even if Donoma is nothing like these bands in terms of style).  Crazed noise-rock tracks in the vein of Lightning Bolt or Godheadsilo’s bass heavy, percussive wallops like “Jack in the Box” and “Splinter” also mimic the insane screaming madness of The Strawbs’ Hero and Heroine, most specifically that album’s freaky title track.    

Then Donoma will shake up lethal Molotov cocktails of barrel-chested blues where the biting vocals completely mow down everything in their path (“Memory,” Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” “Another Light,” “Unfortunate One” and “Otherside”).  Just when you think you have the album’s next move figured out “A New Shed of Colors” and “Come with Me” reel in tidbits of acoustic guitar and stripped down rhythm playing for a country/folk smoothness that goes down easier than rye and coke. Falling Forward is an album that can’t be backed into a corner.  With most music content to choose a genre and never waver from the path, Donoma feel unique in a long line of pretenders.