Full Review: The New Frontiers – Mending

The music is relaxing, slow, and beautiful indie rock. The overall experience is unforgettable like it should be. The New Frontiers have accomplished, in their first attempt, what most bands spend their careers trying to achieve.

Describing the band’s indie rock style which is fused with folk influences makes the band sound like they’re a dime a dozen. The band has certain indescribable qualities which set them apart of the crowd though. I fell in love with ‘Mending’ almost instantaneously, it took little to no effort on my part as the songs gracefully swept in cloaked in all their simplistic charm. Sometimes theres not any other way to describe a band or their music other than saying, “I literally can’t wait to listen to the songs again and again.”

A lot of the songs have a similar formula of starting off basic and swooping in and adding a thicker rhythm and a addictive melody during the chorus. The first couple of tracks are prime examples of this, “Black Lungs” and “Man Down” likely to be fan favorites. “Man Down” becomes a stand out track on a second or third listen through all the songs. From the moment the song starts it has a steady grove which should peak your interest and the pre-chorus does a fantastic job of building up leading into a melodic chorus.

“Beautiful” is a word that keeps popping in my head when thinking about the vocals and blending instrumentation. Layered and lush are the landscapes that are being created. The record has a continuity to it which seems perfect and peaceful by design. Although some song titles might imply other wise, never does it get too whinny or so over the top that you will be looking for the stop button.

“Who Will Give Us Love” ends the journey on a powerful note. There’s a time in the first half of the song which the vocals are very prominent and you can feel the personal echoes of the recording room as if you are right there. The song begins to build at the half way point and slowly fades out the repeated vocals until you are carried away by the musical end which lets you down gently.

If you take anything from this review it should be that this is an amazing musical album and it’s worth your money.

Track Listing
1. Black Lungs
2. The Day You Fell Apart
3. Man Down
4. Mirrors
5. Strangers
6. Passing On
7. This Is My Home
8. Walking On Stones
9. Spirit And Skin
10. Standing On A Line
11. Who Will Give Us Love?

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Buy ‘Mending’ for $5.99 from Amazon.com

Tags: mending, the new frontiers

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 9:10 am and is filed under Full Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.