Why is it that when love enters our lives, we fall into it? The expression to ‘fall in love’ reflects our fundamental ambivalence towards the sensation. Something that hits us with such force, it’s exciting but also terrifying. Containing the subconscious knowledge that something so strong contains the seed of its own destruction. Fear of Men’s new album Fall Forever suggests that once we begin to fall, we never really stop.

Fear of Men’s debut Loom – while possessing glimpses of indie-pop brilliance – was too slight and unobtrusive to make any lasting impact. On Fall Forever, Fear of Men haven’t exactly gone for bombast, but their inner-facing world has turned into something more deceptive than its surface first appears. It’s an album that meets you with a silent gaze, but behind its eyes there’s a brewing storm of emotional turmoil. The twee sensibility that their first album could be accused of has all but evaporated. Replaced by icy electronics and more overt darkness.

Lead singer Jess Weiss’ lyrics deal with the cataclysmic fallout of a relationship, but one she is never able to address directly: “I’m afraid of things I can’t explain”. We see the aftermath but never the event, only able to glimpse what these fears might be through inference and interpretation. On ‘A Memory’ we are given a stream of consciousness of her thoughts: “When we kiss… / The impossible guilt”, but we are never made privy to what the source of this guilt is, only its destructive consequences. We are given hints, particularly in the song titles. Often words not even mentioned in the actual lyrics, the titles work almost as a key by which to navigate or interpret Weiss’ impressionistic narratives. Weiss’ references are often obscure and oblique, pulling from mythology and literature. In ‘Erase (Aubade)’, Aubades are poems or love songs about lovers parting at dawn, sometimes to avoid being discovered because of the forbidden nature of their relationship. But the lyric “I erase these things/I don’t need what I left behind” inverts the form. She’s leaving with assertion, not because of shame. ‘Vesta’ is a Roman goddess of domesticity, and Weiss quietly confesses “I want to build a world with you”. With its ambient instrumentation of reversed chords and skipping samples to create its misty and veiled atmosphere, ‘Vesta’ almost sounds like an inchoate reality slowly beginning to come to together.

‘Onsra’ takes its name from an Indian word, which refers to the bittersweet emotion of knowing the love you are feeling will never last. The use of a word that has no equivalent in English points to language as a fundamentally inadequate tool for processing grief or trauma. Unable to work through the pain or supress it entirely, the music of Fear of Men is one of paralysis. Unable to move in one direction or another because of conflicting desires or feelings, it’s caught in a deadlock. It’s no wonder that the imagery they often choose to accompany their music is statues.

‘Undine’ is an elemental being associated with water, usually a female figure. For Weiss is the Undine of her own memories: “Your words flowing through the back of my head”. From all of these an image begins to emerge. But it is one without clear definition and one Weiss refuses, or is perhaps incapable, of showing us in its entirety.

Instrumentally, quietness and space characterises much of Fall Forever. All this would suggest this is not a very fun album to listen to, but the hooks are still there and this is still unmistakably pop, just imbued with a feeling of strangeness. There is something almost folkloric about Weiss’ vocals and melodies, as they cycle round in hypnotising patterns. The shadow of Portishead looms. Indeed, there’s something of ‘Machine Gun’ in the unrelenting snare rolls of ‘Until You’. Not that Fear of Men have gone trip-hop, but Weiss’ voice has a lightness to it similar to Beth Gibbons. Almost resting on top of the atmospheric electronics, like she is floating upon a body of water. There are moments of dissonance as well. ‘Island’ employs scrapping metallic samples and rapid-fire bass drum kicks. At these moments the music almost feels concrete, only to break into smoke when you reach out to try and grasp it.

This feeling of misdirection also runs through the music itself. Fear of Men’s Fall Forever stays at one tone and atmosphere for basically its entirety, but its one so difficult to pin down that it remains constantly engaging. It’s like a still image of an optical illusion that changes as you are simply looking it, one moment assertive or even triumphant, the next melancholic and defeated.
Louis Ormesher

Website: fearofmen.co.uk
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