The Bay Area Native

By Carlos Cisneros

Rating: 5/5

The highly anticipated self titled album from Bay Area instrumental band Fights Without Fears Within is one solid debut. It contains some of the most grand, ambient, and atmospheric instrumental music you will hear this year. All the instruments which include guitar (Jonathan Werness, Luke Young, Chris Jew) , bass (Blaine Jackson), keys, drums (Michael Rose) and even cello (Shannon Rose) blend together to create a soundscape that builds up and blows you away.  Throughout the album you will hear lovely instrumentals that contain loud-soft dynamics, surrounded by delicate guitar tones, all carried by fantastic drumming.

The album opener “Welcome to the Himalayas” showcases this rather well, as it starts out very delicate, with an ambient intro and keys, drums kicking in around 1:30, and at 2:45 the song completely explodes. This leads to an interesting bridge around 4:18 which leads to another crescendo. For a band this early in their discography, this song is extremely well structured and it shows great promise for guitarists Werness and Young. This song also portrays the bands ability to delve into some rock territory and the entire album sees the band creating soft textures just as much as they create heavier sounds.

“Airplane Coffee” contains some notable tremolo, along with a recording of a person speaking in the background. “Fire & Beauty” is probably one of their most immediately accessible songs, due to its length but also containing beautiful strings during the crescendo in the form of a cello (Shannon Rose). “Stretching Out the Heavens Like Curtains” clocks in at 6 minutes, and includes some great bends during the guitar riffs. “Still” is a change of pace as it is a short, piano only instrumental.

Some electronic influence shines through on “Joshua”, and “The Deep Sea” marks a change from the loud-soft dynamics structurally present across the album. It showcases the ability of drummer Michael Rose to drum lightly just as skillfully as he drums heavy. It also has some great bass lines from Jackson.  The album culminates with “Watch Me Disappear”, where their loud-soft dynamic returns to end the album amidst pounding drums, sharp notes from the cello, and heavy power chords. A fantastic and wonderfully structured debut. You can’t help but be excited for what this band will be capable of creating once they write a follow up album.
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You can find Fights Without Fears Within at the following links:

http://fb.com/fightswithoutfearswithin
http://www.purevolume.com/FightsWithoutFearsWithin
http://fightswithoutfearswithin.bandcamp.com/