REVIEW: Falsifier – Falsifier [EP/2014]
Artist: Falsifier
Album: Falsifier – EP
It speaks volumes for the creative brilliance and perverse bitterness of mankind that we, as a species, have invested countless hours into composing methods of inflicting harm. There are razor-sharp cuts and lacerations—instigators of infliction that are sudden and searing, ending the pain they cause almost as quickly as they instill it. But then, there are the slow and dreadful ways we humans cause suffering; the stinging, searing burns and crunching, torturous breaks and blisters. Those are the wounds that aren’t cut, but torn and scorched into flesh. These injuries are akin to the pain and suffering inflicted by Ontario-based beatdown band Falsifier, and their debut self-titled EP. Rather than the lethal and quick gunshots and razor cuts caused by their more technical and break-neck peers, Falsifier tear, snap and sear their way into the listeners head with bitter, crunching and brooding beatdown that wins the race the same way as the tortoise does—slow and steady.
Snap. Your legs give way as your arms splinter and shatter under the weight—the weight of Falsifier. These Canadian chuggernauts launch their assault on the listener with a relentless, no-holds-barred series of bitter, crunching and brooding chugs. With no warning, Falsifier go from 0 to 60, “Immorality” and “Deceiver” leading the charge into the relentless insanity that this EP confronts the listener with. However, the immediate anvil-like weight nested on the listener’s shoulders presents the listener with the only inherent—but rectifiable—flaw in the release: its production. While Falsifier wastes no time in socking the listener square in the jaw, it does so with a relatively underwhelming and poorly clenched fist. That is to say, it seems inherently quiet—which, fortunately, is nothing that can’t be fixed by bumping up the volume (or, for the more adventurous, boosting the volume in your music player’s equalizer). The beautiful thing about the speed and fury behind the visceral, bone-busting boulders rained down upon the listener by this Ontario-based onslaught is that it is practically relentless—with the exception of a wonderfully placed interlude that provides a gloomy, daunting, yet ethereal, reprieve from the blunt and bold-faced brutality prevalent on the majority of the release.
Crunch. The bones broken by the initial weight placed squarely between the listener’s shoulder blades is intensified by nothing more than time. As “Immorality” gives way to “Deceiver” which gallops into “Grave Digger,” the listener is given no rest. Instead, gravity pulls more valiantly at the weight which is Falsifier, dragging it down to the ground, turning the listener’s splintered bones into dust while doing so. This is exemplified brilliantly with the pounding, relentless percussion on “Deceiver,” or the haunting and doom-and-gloom atmosphere that pours from the fretwork on “Grave Digger.” “Grave Digger” sees Falsifier providing the first tangible change from the brooding, down-tuned chugs that reigned supreme on the previous tracks. Rather, “Grave Digger” has a brilliant and liberal incorporation of high-strung, ambient melody that serves as a mausoleum for the otherwise underground graveyard that the band constructs with their instruments. Likewise, the true-to-its-name “Sinister” includes both hard, heavy chugs and sharp, cutting riffs that work together, finely grinding the listener into a pile of dust and sand—leaving a small pile of rubble where a man once stood.
Hiss. The most bitter and brooding elements of the band and their debut release do not manifest themselves with sheer weight. Rather, they brand the listener with a deep, long burn from an implement as hot as Hell’s inferno. The EP’s lead single, “Gutless” does this best. By this point in the release, the listener is practically crushed under the immeasurable weight and atmosphere of the tracks preceding it: however, “Gutless” launches at the listener like a cat composed of cunning and cut-throat fury from the ambient and haunting “Interlude,” and it lands with deadly accuracy. The hard-hitting impact that leads into the deep, vicious burn and singe of “Gutless’” relentless heat is a perfect metaphor for Falsifier’s self-titled EP as a whole. It lands upon the listener with a severe and sudden impact as if it were kilotons of boulders. However, as the EP—and track, respectively—progress, that weight does not give up. Instead, it grows hotter and more intense, and, before long it isn’t just crushing the listener’s bone, but searing their flesh and melting their skin. Falsifier isn’t simply heavy, its intense, relentless in its bitter, begrudging belittlement of the listener.
By the time Falsifier are done with the listener, they are no more—a pile of smoldering ash rather than a person. Form and function become reduced to shapeless, useless rubble. Simply put, Falsifier provide a fresh and innovative blend of heavy, demoralizing hardcore and bitter, brooding beatdown that hits harder than a freight train made of diamond, and lasts longer than ten infinities.
9.25/10
For Fans Of: Slumlord, Skynet, Immoralist, Genocide District
By: Connor Welsh
