We Fell to Earth - We Fell to Earth (Album)

We Fell to Earth are a collaboration between longtime UNKLE stalwart Richard File and Wendy Rae Fowler (best known for her work with Queens of the Stone Age and Mark Lanegan). File was clearly aware that he was onto something with this project because his desire to completely focus his attention on it prompted him to quit his day job with UNKLE after nigh on ten years.

His decision would appear to be a sage one, as We Fell to Earth is an impressively engrossing debut album. The band’s manifesto is made quite plan right from the start with opening track Spin This Town. Its hypnotic beats and File’s mantra-like vocal delivery call to mind James Chapman’s best work with Maps.

From that point onwards, the record follows a fairly similar path to its opening moments. You‘d be forgiven for thinking that it is a path that we‘ve all seen trodden plenty of times over the last few years. It stops sufficiently short of copy-cat level, but that Maps parallel really is quite strong and there are even occasional echoes of 2009‘s biggest blog-hype victims the XX. That said, this doesn’t make its execution any less impressive. The key We Fell to Earth’s success is the same thing which made its counterparts so engaging - it has a certain intangible sense of brooding menace which draws you in and envelopes you right up to its climactic notes.

The most captivating moments on the record are those which see Fowler’s vocals drizzled over the songs. She is used sparingly throughout the album (perhaps a little too sparingly really), but on a few occasions she gets free reign. Two of these songs in particular, Sovereign and Be Careful What You Wish For are among the album’s high points. The backing tracks on both complement her voice perfectly, augmenting the atmosphere with ghostly synths and otherworldly percussion.

The album as a whole is an intriguing contrast between the muggy sultriness of the layers of noise and the sense of chill suggesting by the brooding basslines and the repetition-heavy vocal delivery. You get the impression that We Fell to Earth are conscious of this contradiction and play around with it purely to fuck with our heads. I get the sense that this is something which will give this record plenty of longevity, as there is hell of a lot to discover here, even notwithstanding the album’s reluctance to stray far from its formula. However, you also fear that the subtlety of the work will see it overlooked in most quarter. Therefore, I urge to persevere with it until it opens itself up, because the rewards are plentiful.

8/10