Album Review: Sioux Falls - Rot Forever
By Van Williams, Contributor
[Broken World; 2016]
Rating: 4/5
Key Tracks: “Chain of Lakes,” “San Francisco Earthquake,” “Crushed”
It’s a special thing when a record can take someone to a place they’ve never necessarily been, and Rot Forever by Sioux Falls makes such a task seem effortless. Sioux Falls’s Broken World Media debut is a kind of record that just doesn’t seem to be getting made too much anymore, which is a shame considering how important bands like it are.
The album starts out strong with “3fast,” a six-minute-long rolling track that puts the listener in a car somewhere where the surrounding greenery passes in a blur. Taking obvious influence from artists like earlier Modest Mouse, the guitar pieces are twangy and the vocals are sloppily delivered, crafting a brand of “indie” rock that brings the listener a little closer to the ground. Sioux Falls minimize the filler by only being a three piece and still managing to fill up the space with as much melody as possible.
The album jogs along seamlessly with short tracks that hover around the two minute mark, weaving in and out of longer epics until the latter half of the middle of the record. “San Francisco Earthquake”, a five minute long anthem, is where the album really picks up its pace. Starting here, there are three songs in a row that really make up the climax of the album: The punch of “San Francisco Earthquake,” “Crushed,” and “Soaked In Sleep.” This is reminiscent of Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity--the 9, 10, 11 punch on that record of “Ten,” “Just Watch The Fireworks,” and “For Me This Is Heaven” is executed in the same way. The impact of these three songs back to back to back is enough to sell anyone on the talent of this band.
Fortunately, the record never really goes back downhill, the album continues to chug out quality songs until it quietly exits with “The Winner.” Vocalist Isaac Eiger softly murmurs “I just wanna believe that what I'm doing means something to someone else / before I die and rot forever” -- and like that, the record is over, just as quickly as it began. This record and this band are not things to wait around on. The melody, the atmosphere and the craftsmanship are something that are sure to make this band a contender for something much bigger they realize.
