This haze of Fall Behind by The Shrubs is so cloudy and dreamy, it seems like sunshine dying away behind an old vinyl record, warm, golden and a little bittersweet. The lyrics are airy and slow, as though reminiscing a mildly sweet thing. Josh and Miguel, and Sophie, are creating an easy and pure sound, that is, psychedelic rock with a heartbeat. It is the type of song that just creeps on you. It happened to do just that one quiet afternoon. I was sucked into its light, and had that old nostalgia of straightforwardness of the past, the one you have trouble defining. You almost know the band in their Katy home studio, the light of the sun pouring on the studio floor, laughter in between recording.
The music is nostalgic-- retro, but lively. It is bounced back by surf-rock, and the guitar voices move in bright and irritable lines playing off against the background of the song, which is one of heartbreak and loneliness. The drums advance everything with this loose groovy beat - consistent, yet never in a hurry. There came a time when I felt myself nodding along, and the rhythm was like the gentle waves rolling in, of the way that however much some days are full of joy and sorrow, they will still have moments of dancing with each other at the same small place. I smiled at it-- and pained a bit as well.
The change of their sound is what truly bewilders me, the silent jump of something sorrowful and slower to something more complete, bolder. you may hear the years of patience in it, the care. Their work with the old stuff, tape reels, cassettes, that wonderful wammeringly feel, endow the music with a texture one can reach out and touch. It jerks about, like memory itself, crude and true and even lovelier in a way due to it.
At the end of the song, this soft, glowing silence remains. You feel lighter, thoughtful. Fall Behind does not shout to be listened, it just stays with you- a constant reminder that change does not always come hurling in. It slides in now and again, whispering and telling you to stop and make it discover you. it is the type of song you hear more than once without even considering it and just lets it run out of the room in the morning in a continuous stream like light - sincere, human, and inexpressibly alive.
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